"Hoary Potter" will be pitted against "Sir Flaps-A-Lot" as people in the US gear up to vote for their favourite bat. you heard that right. The country is hosting its fifth annual bat beauty contest, organised by the Bureau of Land Management, in celebration of bat week.
The contest is an effort to celebrate Halloween--the spookiest time of the year--while also furthering efforts to protect bats as they face increased threats of habitat loss, disease, and light pollution, the bureau’s wildlife technician Emma Busk told the New York Post. She also highlighted the need for the awareness event to dispel many misconceptions levied against bats, including a false propensity for diseases like rabies. “There’s a lot of fear and misconceptions around bats, but less than 1 percent of all bat populations actually carry rabies, and the bat-to-human disease transmission is actually really low,” she said.
The beauty contest originally started in 2019. Pictures of the contestants are shared on the bureau's Facebook and Instagram accounts and the users are asked to vote for the cutest bat. All of the featured bats are photographed and named by the agency staff and their names play an important role in the contest.
Take, for example, Robert Battinson and Batt Damon.
Last year’s winner was a female Townsend’s big-eared bat from southern Oregon dubbed “William ShakespEAR”. In 2022, however, a homely canyon bat named “Barbara” from southern Oregon claimed victory.
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