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The Stour Valley Trust is teaming up with volunteers
to build new homes for bats. It comes at a time when environmentalists
are becoming increasingly concerned about the decreasing population
of the animals, and want to help them thrive.
"It's a really important project because bat numbers
have declined a lot in the last 50 or 60 years. It's partly because
they have lost food supplies, there aren't as many insects about
because we are killing them with pesticides," says Peter Ellis,
a representative from the Stour Valley Trust.
The River Stour is an excellent location for this
type of project because insects like to fly over water. "It's an
excellent place for hunting for the bats, but they also need a place
to roost during the day, and somewhere to hibernate during the winter."
And that is what Peter, and the volunteers hope
to provide with the pill boxes. "It's not the same as a David Attenborough
program where you get loads of bats streaming out of a cave, they
don't do that and they don't hibernate in ones and twos. You wouldn't
get very many in a structure like the pill boxes but it still seems
very important because they need somewhere," Peter says.
He explains that while the volunteers are keen
to improve the numbers of bats, they also want to maintain the site.
"The pill boxes are historic structures and we don't want to spoil
the landscape. There are 40 of the pill boxes going up the Stour
valley and it's a major anti-invasion stock-line. It's important
that people understand that it is a part of Second World War history.
Visually what we are doing won't make any difference, and I think
that’s important. We also hope that by putting a door on the
buildings we can stop them from being miss-used. Hopefully the historians
win as well as the conservationists."
The bats will find the new homes through their
'echo locations'. "They are able to sound out a structure and they
can tell that it's hollow and suitable," says Peter. "They are a
much maligned group of animals but they are great and they need
all the help they can get."
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