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Bat Bridges

Anonymous
Anonymous 14/11/2009 23:24

Hi there

I was reading one of the daily papers today, and came across an article about Bat Bridges over motorways.

There seen to be a lot of money going into accommodating bats on their travels, and to help with their flying patterns.

Money such as £300,000 had been spent on a 'bat bridge' over the A38 to help a few bats.

Bridges to be considered are
A69 Haydon Bridge, Northumberland - cost £60,000
High and low Newton, Cumbria - cost £45,000
Lillyhall, Cumbria - cost £34,133

These bat bridge scenes have been created by Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis who explains that we are legally bound to take care of our wildlife.

What do we all think of this happening?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wil...-the-road.html

Regards

Kathy and Dave

  • 16/11/2009 23:29 in reply to Sarum Bat

    When I said 'stuff like this, gets my goat', I meant the actual reporting of the bridge 

  • 17/11/2009 00:13 in reply to Susan

    Hi Susan,

    Sorry, were you feeling attacked?  That wasn't my intention.  Reporting like that gets my goat too as it is usually biased and does more harm than good. 

    There is something new to learn everyday...

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/skylark58/

  • 17/11/2009 00:15 in reply to Sarum Bat

    Nor me by the way... just a point of view! ;-)

    "All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)

    My photos on Flickr

  • 17/11/2009 00:37 in reply to Rockwolf

    No no -  its just after re reading thought I'd better clarify  xx

  • 17/11/2009 02:51 in reply to Susan

    I don't know much about bats admittedly, but the cost of the overall construction of the road is much much more than the cost of the bat bridge.   I can undestand that  some people will question and ridicule the cost of the construction of the bridge and also why spending so much money is justifiable for a few bats.  In my opinion if conservation was cheap then that would be great but it isn't, it all costs money.   The question is how much do you feel about conservation in the first place.  There are many of us who want to enjoy the animals that share this planet and continue to do so in 30-40 years time.  We have a duty, in my opinion, being a species that has a greater ability in realisation to change our circumstances and to preserve other species around us.   Simply put humans have had a greater impact on this earth than any other, purely because of evolution.  The difference is we realise and understand this but we often choose not to accept it or in some cases do anything about it. 

    .......It's not all about us

    Regards

    Kerry

     http://www.flickr.com/photos/kezmo6310/

  • 26/03/2010 22:46 in reply to Kezmo
    A bit late, but I just picked up this thread. Info from a local bat conservator on another forum "As for the Cornish Dobwalls bypass bat bridges, plural, SX210650, I asked locally about them. The environmental assessment established that it was going to cut right across a well established flight route for Horseshoes. The numbers using that route are significant, whatever the hard evidence of numbers. It wasn't just an uprooted hedge, it was an uprooted hill...Two bat bridges were specified to give protected crossings without the bats having to swoop down to road level for protection from predators and get hit by vehicles. A bat cannot echolocate anything moving fast. While the counted bat numbers may be "low", any increased mortality due to the road excavation is likely to wipe out local bat roosts of this rare UK species." I believe the original article was in the Daily Mail. Nuff said. Batmanrog