PHOTHARAM, Thailand – The bat hooves fly off bat.
In the darkness of the caves, in a cave complex west of Bangkok, Thais did their business in headlights and with flashlights.
Pilgrims to the temple that owns the complex prayed to Buddha statues in one of the caves; the images of the statues betrayed no reaction to the plip-plop plow of bat manure falling on their shoulders.
Collectors of bat manure, or guano, dug up the manure to sell as fertilizer, and they put bags of manure through an obstacle course of stalactites and stalagmites.
And medical researchers, under the supervision of one of the world’s leading bat virologists, have trapped winged mammals to examine them for traces of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Scientists believe it originated in bats.
Outside the complex, the abbot of the Buddhist temple, who calls himself the ‘temple of hundreds of millions of bats’, went to a loudspeaker to tell visitors that the resident mammals were harmless.
“Do not worry, these bats do not carry diseases because they are insectivorous bats,” said Abbot Phra Khru Witsuthananthakhun. “Everyone knows that when fruit bats eat fruit, they share it with other animals, such as rats, and so spread diseases.”
The abbot of the temple is correct that fruit-eating bats have been linked to serious viruses that have sprung up in the human population. But insectivorous bats have given humans their share in deadly diseases. Many virologists believe that the horseshoe, an avid bug eater, may be linked to the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. And a report from the Thai National Park identified a species of horseshoe in the caves.
The area around the caves, the Photharam district in Ratchaburi province, has tied its fortunes to bats – tourists, fertilizer companies and most importantly of late – chiropractors, scientists studying flying mammals.
In the small, fluttering heart of the local economy – some bats can change their heart rate by 800 beats per minute – is Khao Chong Phran Temple, which owns the limestone caves where the bats hide during the day. In just one cave, there are three million bats of ten different species.
Nearly a quarter of the world’s mammal species are bats, and their ability to fly while presenting a petri dish virus makes them both zoologists and effective diseases. Infectious diseases that have presumably developed in bats in recent decades include coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS, along with other viruses such as Nipah, Hendra and Ebola.
Most of these viruses were transmitted from bats to an intermediate host, such as a palm silica or camel, before passing on to humans.
Although the coronavirus causing Covid-19, which came to the public’s attention at the end of 2019, has not been definitively returned to bats, a researcher in Yunnan Province in southwest China has found evidence in bats. of a virus that looks like a lot. There are also some links in the mist of the horseshoe from Cambodia. And the same kind of bat was the natural reservoir for the SARS coronavirus.
The discovery of the possible link between horseshoe bats and the coronavirus linked to Covid-19 prompted Dr Supaporn Watchara preaching idea, the deputy head of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases in Thailand, and a specialist in bat-borne viruses to investigate whether bats in Thailand , which is not far from Yunnan and Cambodia, may have a similar virus load.
Dr Supaporn said her team found no trace of a coronavirus similar to that caused by Covid-19 in the bats of the Khao Chong Phran temple, although other coronaviruses had been discovered. there. She also found no horseshoe bats there.
There is also no antibody evidence for the virus on testing human inhabitants in and around Khao Chong Phran, including guano collectors who have spent decades with bats.
Nevertheless, the face of researchers, dressed head to toe in personal protective equipment, has surprised a community that relies on bats as its economic pillar.
“There is no Covid here,” said Auenjit Kaewtako, a district health volunteer who has been coming to Khao Chong Phran for 40 years. “Why do we have to blame the bats?”
Although Thailand was the first country outside China to confirm a Covid-19 case – during a Chinese tourist visit in January – the country has apparently been strangling local distribution since May. Thais were usually vigilant about wearing face masks, and national borders were ordered to close to prevent the virus from arriving from abroad.
But in recent weeks, the coronavirus has begun to spread across the country after being first identified in migrating communities working along the porous border with Myanmar. From months ago, Thailand did not transfer any cases of local shipping to hundreds of cases per day at the end of December and January.
Xenophobia has increased the fear of bats, along with chiroptophobia.
According to the guano collectors of Khao Chong Phran, which is not far from the border with Myanmar, the anxiety caused by bats is overshadowed. There are 17 species of bats in the area, and only two are fruit-eating bats associated with the spread of disease, they say. The rest digest insects, which means that the bat manure shines with an iridescent residue of bug wings.
“Even before my grandfather’s generation, we collected guano from the caves,” said Jaew Yemcem, 65, resting on the temple grounds with her bare feet in soft mounds bats. “It was good with us, and we did well.”
Every Saturday morning before dawn, Khao Chong Phran allows guano collectors, some wearing homemade balaclavas to protect themselves from dripping dung, to enter caves and exploit the nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Many of the workers walk barefoot to negotiate a slippery ground with condensation and bats.
After the guano was purchased from the collectors, the temple auctioned it off to farmers or intermediaries in agriculture, who say that only a handful of fertilizer gave an enticing sweetness to guavas and an impressive outline to papayas.
The collectors receive about 85 cents per bucket of guano and can accumulate a dozen buckets every day if they are lucky.
In some Southeast Asian countries, bats are eaten precious. While temple stalls in Khao Chong Phran once sold meat bats, the residents no longer eat them because they have been designated as protected animals, Dr. Supaporn, who has been doing research on bats for a decade, said.
Prangthip Yencem, who works as a coke assistant at a local school during the week and mines mines on Saturdays, says the consumption of bats continues. Bat tastes good in any amount of preparations, she said, including baked with chili and holy basil or deep-fried with garlic and white pepper.
For men, bat blood with a shot of alcohol is an invigorating cocktail, she said.
Residents of the area no longer hunt bats, as the abbot warned them against it, Ms. Prangthip said. But if the strange bat accidentally flies into a telephone pole and falls to the ground, then who will refuse a free meal?
“Even now people eat bats,” she said, “and they do not get Covid.”
The population of bats in Photharam district has declined in recent decades, the victims of the urban expansion that is eating up rural Thailand. The heavy use of pesticides has also deprived bats of their food.
With fewer bats in the area, half as much guano is being collected as a decade ago. The existence of fewer bats disrupted pollination patterns, harming tropical ecosystems in the same way as the decline in bees.
And very importantly, some bat virologists believe that an increase in stress among bats can make the animals more vulnerable to disease symptoms, which can increase the chance of viruses to other species.
Normally, bats can lead healthy lives with multiple viruses running through their bodies. But the equipment of human development – tall buildings, electricity wires and cement extensions – can stress bat bodies while working overtime to use echolocation, the sound frequencies to determine their environment.
Phra Somnuek, now a monk at the temple, remembers when he was a child. The flight of the bats, still a tourist attraction, is now done within 45 minutes, he said.
“I’m worried that one day bats will just be a legend here,” he said. “When we lose our bats, we lose what makes us special.”
Muktita Suhartono reported.