Bat Conservation - Ecological Paradox: Saving Fruits Threatens Pollinators

Every year, many fruit bats perish in nets meant to protect crops. According to ornithologist Narainsamy Ramen, a poorly designed compensation policy exacerbates the very problem it aims to solve.

Each morning before dawn, the same scene unfolds in orchards and gardens. Lychees and mangoes litter the ground, barely nibbled and then discarded. On sidewalks, the fruits ferment in the sun. In the nets stretched between branches, bats writhe in agony, sometimes mothers with their young still clinging under their wings. "Bats captured with their young is not management, it’s cruelty," denounces Narainsamy Ramen, an ornithologist trained by the Royal Air Force and a wildlife observer in Mauritius for decades.

The paradox is cruel: to save their crops, Mauritians are decimating the species that ensures the reproduction of their fruit trees. Fruit bats, the island's only long-distance pollinators and primary seed dispersers, are trapped in a dysfunctional protection system. The result: fruits continue to rot on the ground, and bats die en masse.

"Every year, I document sidewalks covered with lychees, mangoes at all stages of ripeness scattered on concrete, and just as frequently, I see bats trapped in nets, sometimes dozens in a single tree," recounts Narainsamy Ramen. Mangoes, lychees, longans, jambolan, papayas: these fruits, once abundant in Mauritian markets and nourishing households, disappear long before they ripen. "The problem isn't what the bats eat, but what they destroy," summarizes the ornithologist.

Families are indeed losing a vital seasonal resource, farmers are seeing their incomes collapse, and orchard owners face daily frustration. The scale of the waste remains invisible to the general public because scavengers collect most fruits by noon.

In response to the increasing number of bats in urban and agricultural areas – what was once a limited presence now represents groups of hundreds – the government implemented a compensation system encouraging the netting of trees. But the policy has turned into an ecological disaster, claims the ornithologist. Compensation has been distributed without training, standards, supervision, maintenance requirements, or ecological guarantees.

As a consequence, installed nets are poorly tensioned or sagging, torn and ripped. Their inappropriate mesh allows bats to enter with no way to exit, trapping their wings and limbs. Left unchecked for months, they become real death traps. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that fruit bats only produce one pup per year. Each trapped mother represents two generations wiped out and all those she could have birthed, explains Narainsamy Ramen. Meanwhile, 70 to 80% of fruits continue to fall prematurely.

For Narainsamy Ramen, the government is making a fundamental diagnostic error. Bats do not settle in inhabited areas by chance. Their movement reflects the loss of natural feeding zones, deforestation, scarcity of indigenous fruits, and concentration of food resources in inhabited areas. "The government responded to the symptom – damage to fruits – instead of addressing the root cause linked to habitat reduction. That’s why, year after year, the situation worsens," he points out.

Moreover, the current policy ignores the crucial ecological role of fruit bats. These frugivorous bats are the main long-distance pollinators and major seed dispersers of both indigenous and cultivated fruit species. "Every orchard in Mauritius exists indirectly thanks to the bats that once dispersed the seeds or pollinated the parent trees. Yet, the political response has treated them as pests rather than partners," laments Narainsamy Ramen. By trapping and killing a large number of reproductive females and young, Mauritius is destroying the species that guarantees its future fruit cycles.

The ornithologist does not just denounce. He proposes several concrete solutions: establishing strict standards for nets and enforcing regular inspections; favoring partial and targeted netting only during the peak fruiting period; using alternative methods like ultrasonic devices, visual repellents, or strategic lighting to reduce bat visits without killing them. Most importantly, he advocates restructuring the compensation system to reward the proper installation and regular maintenance of nets, rather than blindly funding their installation. In the long term, restoring indigenous forests and creating food corridors away from inhabited areas would provide alternative food sources and reduce pressure on orchards, he adds.

The urgency is real. If bats continue to die at the current rate, pollination will decline, directly reducing agricultural yields. Bats today are among the last functional seed dispersers in Mauritius. Without them, forests cannot regenerate naturally. "Every bat dying in a net eliminates an essential ecological role that farmers cannot artificially replace," reminds Narainsamy Ramen.

Mauritius is at a crossroads, he insists: continuing down this path will lead to a simultaneous decline of bats and the country's fruit production.