STARKVILLE – Though you may not see or hear them, thousands of bats are living on Mississippi State University’s campus, attending football games at Davis Wade Stadium and snuggling up in MSU’s multi-story residence halls.

Most people, though, aren’t keen on having their winged neighbors around. Chris Ayers, an assistant teaching professor in MSU’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, said the bats’ droppings, called guano, and their fear-factor pose some real problems for the university.

“The guano gives off a lot of ammonia,” Ayers said. “I walked into a room in (Davis Wade Stadium), and (the smell) burned my eyes. … The people who are paying lots of money to go to the football game complain, and people are scared of bats. It’s the fear factor and the guano more so than it is an actual risk of disease transmission.”

Ayers, who serves as adviser to the MSU student chapter of The Wildlife Society, a wildlife club on campus, is overseeing a project intended to relocate the estimated hundred of thousands of bats residing on campus into a newly-constructed 256 square foot bat-roosting structure, positioned on the edge of campus at Blackjack Lake.

“I’m sure they’re very happy living in the stadium,” Ayers said. “So I don’t know if it matters to them where they’re living, but … people are trying to get rid of them, and people are getting kind of fed up with them on campus. So this would be a safe place for them to live.”

Construction of the bat house began in April and was completed last month. Discussions about building a bat structure have been had for decades amongst faculty, Ayers said, and students finally decided to take the project on in fall 2023.

Julia Null, a recent graduate from the College of Forest Resources, headed the project. She and a small group of peers wrote a proposal to MSU’s Student Association in 2023 requesting a $20,000 grant. They received the funding in full, though it took until this year to receive the additional $20,000 needed to complete the project.

“It’s been a long journey,” Null said. “I don’t want to say I’m glad it’s over, but I am glad to see it through.”

With two contractors and a handful of student volunteers, the construction of the 25-foot house on stilts wrapped up a few weeks ago. Null’s plan now is for the structure to hold the estimated 200,000 bats living on campus.

Though Ayers said getting them to their new home could take some time – somewhere between two and three years. To jump start the process, he plans to capture approximately 1,000 bats from Davis Wade Stadium to move them to the house later this fall.

“I don’t really know how to transport 1,000 bats,” Ayers said, laughing. “I’ve never done it before. … We’ll find a way to load them into some sacks or boxes, put them in the back of the truck and drive over there, haul them up into the house and then open up that container, and say ‘This is for you.’ We’ll see how that goes.”

Null said there are few ways to relocate the bats. One option is to use a mist net, which is a fine mesh net strung between poles, to capture the flying bats. Another option is to simply pick the bats off the walls while they’re in a dormant state.

“If we can get 1,000 of the bats over there, we’re hoping enough of them will be the more influential bats, the older females and males, and maybe they’ll convince the rest of the bats to check the new place out,” Null said. “I think that’s when we’ll start seeing our success.”

Ayers also plans to collect guano samples from the stadium to leave at the new home to entice the bats to follow the scent’s trail.

Visit the bats?

Once bats take up residence in their new home, Null and Ayers plan to make the structure a point of public outreach.

Ayers said he plans to have students in his mammology courses monitor the bats in their new home.

“There’s plenty of research opportunities,” Ayers said. “We can look at the diet of the animals. We can look at the number of animals. We can look at the genetic relationships of the different species that are potentially using it. … I think that there’s some potential to look at diseases that the bats might potentially be holding, and if there’s any potential risk to people.”

Ayers also said some students in The Wildlife Society have aspirations to sell the guano as fertilizer.

Though the structure is located on private university property, Null hopes to organize chaperoned field trips for students and community members interested in the structure to spread awareness on the bats’ vital role in the ecosystem.

“Bats are often villainized as dark and evil creatures,” Null said. “I want the community to have an opportunity to see them in a different light. … (Bats) help incorporate the balance that we need in our ecosystems. In an ecological sense, everything has to balance each other to have a sustainable ecosystem, and bats are very, very essential for that.”

Null said they plan to host a ribbon-cutting ceremony in August for students, faculty and possibly interested community members as well. Updates on the ribbon-cutting ceremony can be found on the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture’s social media.

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