Once a trademark of the Subic tourism experience, fruit bats (also called flying foxes) in the forests of the Subic Bay Freeport have started to dwindle due to human activity.
“The last time we surveyed the number of bats here, it was around 10,000. But that number has dwindled due to human activities in the area,” says Amethya de la Llana-Koval, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) ecology center chief, citing the results of a recent survey.
A large roost of bats composed of two species, Acerodon jubatus (golden crowned flying foxes) and Pteropus vampyrus lanensis (Philippine giant fruit bat), is found near the Subic Bay International Airport, while a smaller roost of Acerodon jubatus is found in the Naval Magazine area.
Koval says some people hunt bats for food, while others kill these nocturnal mammals when they roost in another place.
An SBMA survey last month showed that only 2,000 bats were found leaving the free port toward Morong and Mariveles towns in Bataan, areas that border the economic zone.
The biggest number of bats recorded there was around 14,000 in April this year, while the smallest was 400 in September, the survey showed.
“We conduct surveys two times a year, trying to figure out their flight pattern,” Koval says.
“The good thing about it is that when they come to roost in the free port, they are well protected. But when they roost outside our protective blanket, they are hunted and eaten as delicacies,” she says.
Population survey
She says the SBMA conducted a population survey of fruit bats, one of the most popular species endemic to this free port, to promote their conservation.
The survey, called “Count Me In,” encouraged the participation of residents, businessmen, students and volunteers in the Subic Bay area to increase public awareness on the importance of fruit bats, encourage participation in the conservation program and maintain the integrity of the forest to sustain their population.
Koval says the main reason for the dwindling fruit bat population is poaching. “But that does not happen inside Subic. It happens outside the free port when they fly out in search of food,” she says.
When bats forage for food and fail to find fruit-bearing trees inside the free port, then they fly out to nearby communities to hunt, she says, adding that the birds are vulnerable to poachers there.
This is addressed by the SBMA, she says, through the reforestation of large areas inside the free port, such as the Pastolan community in nearby Hermosa town in Bataan.
“We’ve planted fruit-bearing trees in a 120-hectare area there. This is an ongoing activity by the SBMA … [so] the bats won’t have to go far to find food,” she says.
Awareness program
Another initiative to protect the bats is an awareness program initiated by the SBMA that seeks to inform people living in these communities to stop hunting bats.
“Poachers only hunt them because there is a market for them. There are reports that some local restaurants serve this as a delicacy,” Koval says.
“What we’re trying to do is to keep people from buying the bats or eating them when they do,” she says.
She says the SBMA is looking for a partner, an academic institution or a nongovernment organization, to help make a scientific assessment of the bat population in Subic.
“This is costly, so we’re looking for partners who can help us out. But we’re hoping all the steps we’ve taken can help improve the bat population here. It may take some time, but we’re hoping to do it,” she says.
The SBMA survey estimated the population of the flying foxes through an “exit count,” and determined other exit routes of the bats to serve as sampling locations.
The bat counting activity was facilitated by the SBMA ecology center and undertaken by 10 teams at designated sampling stations. Each team was composed of an ecology center staff who acted as team leader and five members who did the exit counts at specified sampling areas.
Data collected in the survey were collated by the ecology center. After the activity, the participants were put in the list of volunteer bat counters that would be contacted periodically for monitoring activities here.
The Subic Watershed and Forest Reserve is one of the few remaining undisturbed lowland dipterocarp forests in Luzon and serves as a habitat of various endemic wildlife species, among them the fruit bats.
Flying foxes, which have an average life span of 25 to 30 years, are nocturnal animals that travel to feed on fruits during the night, although some, especially mothers that nurse their young, hibernate and stay in their roost.