First bat guano clean-up action
On Wednesday, March 27, we carried out clean-up action in which we removed bat and pigeon feeces (guano) from the first two floors of the church bell tower and from the attic of the Church of the Assumption of Mary in Grad. During the cleaning action, about 60 kg of bat guano and 50 kg of pigeon guano was removed. In the part of the attic where bats prefer to stay in the summer months, we installed a small wooden platform with a plastic tarpaulin, which will make the removal of guano in the future even faster and easier. Additionally this platform will also protect the wooden roofing.
The attic and the bell tower are an important roost of the nursery group of the greater mouse-eared bat. And according to the censuses one of the most important bat roost in Goričko and their numbers are increasing each year. In 2015, 86 bats were recorded, while in 2018 already 138 bats were roosting within the church. Bats are important to humans and other species as they regulate the numbers of insects, such as mosquitoes and moths. The clean-up action was carried out within the Gorička krajina project, which would not have been carried out if Goričko had not been a part of the ecological network Natura 2000.
