Bats get a bad rap.
From horror films to tabloid pages to Halloween, media and cultural depictions of our planet’s only volant, or flying, mammals have long generated and reinforced unfounded fear. Their evident role as original source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that produced the COVID-19 epidemic has exacerbated their unfortunate public image and even led to calls and active measures to cull or harass bat populations.
Such hostile attitudes make it harder to conserve bats and thereby safeguard the many critical benefits they provide us. What’s more, persecuting bats because of the diseases they harbor could easily backfire.
Before getting into that, let’s back up for a second.
— source scientificamerican.com | Timothy Treuer, Ricardo Rocha, Cara Brook | May 15, 2020