MexicanFreetailedBat_Chiroptorium_Bamberger_David_JohnsonCityTX_17June1999_Reel2003.wav

David Bamberger [00:00:00] And a number of things we've done here that were a little bit different.

David Bamberger [00:00:06] And one in particular, I most certainly don't recommend to everyone because it did require some capital. But to try to demonstrate whether manmade habitat could make up for, or mitigate, some of the damage that man has done to the landscapes, we constructed a cave which we call a chiroptorium.

David Bamberger [00:00:29] Now, "Chiroptera" in science is the order under which bats fall. And of course, an auditorium is a place where you can come and go of your own free well and watch the show. So my wife and my son named this facility I built a "chiroptorium" and it's been accepted by the scientific community and most likely will be a dictionary word in the very near future.

David Bamberger [00:00:55] But it's a manmade cave that we built in a canyon, that has three domes with connecting passageways that simulate the naturalness of a natural cave. It also has something unique. It has a man entrance, a tunnel that goes into an observation room, where a man can go in, scientists or study groups can go in, and look through big plate glass windows into each dome so they could study bat behavior without actually donning a mask and going into the cave where their very presence would disturb the, the bats.

David Bamberger [00:01:39] This chiroptorium has the capacity or the ability to house a million to a million and a half bats. So if you can imagine building a birdhouse that would hold a million and a half birds, you know the size and the scope of this thing.