Baby Bats Tue Jun 11,10:43 AM ET

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss nature lovers pleaded with people to watch out for baby "dwarf" bats which often die after falling out of their nests in June, particularly in bad weather.

They warned that the mortality rate among the baby pipistrelle bats -- about the size of a bee -- could rise following a wet and rainy spell.

Bad weather reduces the insects available for food which makes the mother bats lethargic. The babies topple out of their nests when they go to search for their mothers.

The Swiss Bat Conservation Foundation advised people finding the tiny creatures to put them back in the nests or leave them on a "platform" so their parents can pick them up. It also has a 24-hour bat emergency number.

and this one.......ain't sustainable agriculture wonderful?

Locust-Eating Ducks Face Future in Pancakes Tue Jun 11,10:57 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is enlisting armies of ducks to prevent a plague of locusts engulfing swathes of valuable cropland, but the birds will probably end up in restaurants.

The Manasi locust station in the northwest is about to unleash 4,000 hungry ducks into surrounding fields to munch their way through as many of the insects as they can.

"Ducks are the best way to get rid of locusts because they have such a big appetite," Xiao Hongwei said by telephone from the locust station on Tuesday.

"After two or three months, they typically weigh around two kilos and can be sold to markets and roast duck restaurants" to be eaten wrapped in thin pancakes with plum sauce and spring onions.

The ducks faced harder work this year because a longer-than-usual dry spell had increased the locust population, he said.

Around Tianjin, only a few hours drive from Beijing, there were already up to 5,000 locusts per square meter and crop-dusting aircraft had been brought in to join in the fight, the China Daily said.

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2002

Answers

Great stories, Earthmama! I can't imagine a bat as tiny as a bee!!! It has always fascinated me that Mother Nature has packed all the instincts that are necessary for survival into creatures so tiny. And we humans thinks we're so smart :-)!!

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2002