SEABCRU » guano harvesting

First workshop publication — Guano harvesting in Myanmar by Thet Thet and Khin Mya Mya

Paul Racey — Wed, 27 May 2015 21:12:06 +0000

Last year, IUCN published guidelines for minimising the negative impact of guano harvesting on bats and called for relevant studies. The first of these has now been published by Thet Thet and Khin Mya Mya of Mandalay University, Myanmar in the open-access Journal of Threatened Taxa. It provides clear evidence that the amount of guano harvested from a cave in central Myanmar occupied by 200,000 Taphozous theobaldi and Tadarida plicata remained relatively constant over a three year period, with some seasonal variation, indicating that the bats were not disturbed by the harvesting. A single family has held a licence for over 40 years from the local Forestry Department to harvest the guano, and this has clearly been an important factor in its sustainability.

Thet Thet & Khin Mya Mya (2015) Harvesting the guano of insectivorous bats: is it sustainable? Journal of Threatened Taxa 7: 7296-7297.

Abstract A three year study of the weight of guano removed from a single cave in Myanmar, from which guano has been extracted for over forty years, indicates that such harvesting is sustainable. The cave is occupied by an estimated 200,000 bats, mostly Tadarida plicata. An annual licence is issued by the Forestry Department to a single family which extracted an average of 36 tons of guano each year from 2003 to 2005. The guano is transported 350 km to Lake Inle where it is sold to fertilise tomatoes.

SPECIAL NOTE FROM TIGGA: This is the first publication to arise from the publishing workshop embedded within the SEABCRU Bat Conservation Workshop at the University of Mandalay in August 2014. CONGRATULATIONS from all at SEABCRU to Thet Thet and Khin Mya Mya in bringing this to completion, and a special thanks to Paul Racey for liaising with the journal. I look forward to many more publications featuring the great work being done in Myanmar!

Bat guano enhances plant growth

Angela Como — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 18:51:49 +0000

Bat guano has long been used as a natural fertilizer for crops in certain areas of Cambodia and Vietnam. As its efficacy as a fertilizer is unknown, Sothearen, Furey and Jurgens conducted the first formal testing of bat guano as an agent of enhanced crop growth. Guano was found to increase growth rates in every tested species as compared to untreated plants, and even yielded higher growth rates in several cases than the chemical fertilizer treatments. Given that macro-nutrient content of the guano was significantly less than that of the chemical fertilizer and that the plant species in this experiment are all economically valuable crops, these findings may very well be instrumental to economic and food security in Southeast Asia.

Sothearen, T., N. M. Furey and J. A. Jurgens. 2014. Effect of bat guano on the growth of five economically important plant species. Journal of Tropical Agriculture 52 (2): 169-173.

Author for correspondence: sothearenthi at yahoo dot com

The full article is available at: http://www.jtropag.in/index.php/ojs/issue/view/28

Guidelines for Minimizing the Negative Impact to Bats and Other Cave Organisms from Guano Harvesting

Angela Como — Wed, 28 May 2014 18:55:49 +0000

With the goal of achieving sustainable guano mining techniques, the Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders Bat Group, with assistance from Bat Conservation International and SEABCRU, has developed a set of guano harvesting guidelines designed to minimize harmful impacts on cave bat populations. Cave ecosystems are able to function largely due to guano deposits, which contain incredible amounts of energy derived from the outside world. Humans have recognized the value of energy-rich guano as a source of phosphorous for agricultural fertilizers, and the mining of guano for this very purpose is a widespread occurrence. Popular guano mining practices, however, have contributed to the deaths of millions of bats, and the loss of priceless ecosystem services along with them. These guidelines will provide an invaluable resource for natural resource managers and wildlife biologists in Southeast Asia as they work towards more sustainable guano harvesting practices in the region.

Guano harvesting guidelines can be downloaded from the IUCN here, and they are attached for download below

Guano Harvesting Guidelines

Development of Bat Guano Harvesting Guidelines

Danielle Brigida — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:19:46 +0000

From Danielle Brigida

The Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders (EWCL) Bat Team is excited to be working over the course of the next year and a half to facilitate the development of standards on bat guano harvesting in Southeast Asia that will help reduce the impact of harvesting on bat colonies in this part of the world. With the help of Bat Conservation International and an Advisory Committee, our aim is to set the stage for adoption of worldwide guano harvesting standards.

Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders works with participants from conservation NGOs and state and local government agencies from around the world. It is a training and mentoring initiative that brings together twenty emerging leaders in the wildlife conservation field for capacity building and intense training in campaign development and leadership skills, including implementation of a two-year group international wildlife issue campaign.

Meet the EWCL Bat Team:
Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation, Reston, VA, USA
Crystal DiMiceli, Wildlife Conservation Society, Prospect Park Zoo, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Kate Gersh, African Wildlife Foundation, Washington, DC, USA
Mathilde Iweins, Conservation International, Rome, Italy
Ryan Richards, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC, USA
Allison Barra Srinivas, Defenders of Wildlife, Washington, DC, USA

We hope to have these standards adopted by the IUCN at the World Conservation Conference in September 2012. Since the beginning of our project in April 2011, our team has conducted initial research on guano harvesting, contacted several international bat experts about our project, and developed a draft set of guidelines. The draft is available here under the products tab, along with templates for cave education modeled on our work in Cambodia.

We’d love your help or advice on this project. Please feel free to email batguanoharvest@gmail.com with any questions.

Read more about our project on Defenders of Wildlife’s Blog:
http://www.defendersblog.org/2011/06/conservation-in-action-harvesting-bat-guano/