Cambodia bats cause furore by living in museum roof
Date: 21-Mar-01
Country: CAMBODIA
Author: Hillary Jackson
The small, insect-eating bats living in the museum's roof are thought to be the largest population to inhabit a building anywhere in the world. Estimates of their number run as high as two million.
The bats produce tonnes of nitrogen-rich droppings - or guano - which Cambodians use as fertiliser and which the museum collects and sells to earn as much as $250 per month.
But the underfunded museum does not really see any benefit from the cash - hence the debate.
"The income from the bat droppings we spend on bat-dropping protection," the museum's deputy director Hab Touch told Reuters.
The staff must clean several times a day to remove the guano and spray expensive insecticides throughout the museum to ward of the blood-sucking fleas that accompany the bats, he explained.
"The presence of the bats is very interesting for people, even tourists, but the presence of the bats also causes many problems for the museum, the staff and the visitors," he said.
The three species of bats that spend their days in the museum's roof have become an attraction themselves, lulling visitors with their endless chirping during the day and swarming out of the museum each evening as the sun sets.
But a wooden-slat ceiling constructed in 1995 does not adequately catch the bat guano, Hab Touch said.
ACIDIC GUANO
The guano becomes powdery and falls through the slats during the dry season to settle on centuries-old statues and paintings, he said. If left there, the guano turns acidic and begins eating away at the priceless artwork.
During the other half of the year when Cambodia is deluged with rains, the guano runs down the museum walls, further damaging the artwork and collecting in black puddles on the museum floor, Hab Touch said.
"When it rains, the smell of the bat droppings is very bad," he said. "The bat droppings turn acidic when they fall onto the objects and that, combined with high humidity, is very bad."
Most of the museum's many visitors take the unpleasant atmosphere in their stride, with some even taking their own protective measures, Hab Touch noted.
"Visitors have heard about the bat droppings, and some wear Vietnamese conical hats to the museum," he said. Others slather on insect repellant to ward off fleas and ticks.
But potential donors have not always been so game, Hab Touch said.
The Japanese government, for instance, denied a request two years ago for new lighting and audio-visual equipment because of the leaking roof and bat guano problem, he said.
"This building is not for the bats but for Cambodian treasures," Hab Touch said.
NOOKS AND CRANNIES
The bats are not so easy to get rid of, however.
The roof of the building, styled like a traditional Cambodian temple, is full of nooks and crannies perfect for roosting during the day and its open-air design would be nearly impossible to enclose.
When museum officials suggested a few years ago that they wanted to exterminate the nocturnal creatures, animal-lovers and conservationists protested.
"It's probably the largest colony within a building in the world," said Joe Walston, a research coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).
One of the three species, Theobald's tomb bat, is uncommon, he noted. The other two, the bearded tomb bat and the wrinkle-lipped bat, are fairly common, however.
"Those bats eat tonnes of mosquitoes, rice crop pests and other insects every night...They convert those insects into natural fertiliser that is cheaper and more effective than artificial fertiliser and far more beneficial to everyone," he said.
The latest solution is a project spearheaded by the museum, New York-based WCS and the World Monuments Fund and which has the endorsement of Princess Norodom Bopha Devi, minister of culture and a daughter of King Norodom Sihanouk.
The project would include the construction of a concrete ceiling, repairs to the leaking roof and the installation of a new lighting system insid