Interview with Brian Pope of Lubee Bat Conservancy

In the recent episode of the podcast, I speak with Brian Pope of Lubee Bat Conservancy. Brian has been working with animals his entire life, and but joined Lubee and started working with bats full time in 2007. 

I learned a lot speaking with Brian, mainly that bats love playing with toys and taking things apart, that they can eat nearly 5,000-7,000 insects a night, that they are the only things that can pollinate agave plants (which are crucial in the production of tequila), and that they are being used by the Center for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and the US Army Medical Research of Infectious Diseases to find cures for some of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Brian puts a lot of myths about bats to rest, including that they are blind, that they are all nocturnal, and that they don’t all echolocate.