In February, Barcelona City Council is to install 18 nesting towers for bats around cultivation patches and green areas in the city. This pioneering measure is aimed at controlling groups of flying insects in the city’s green spaces. The nesting towers should facilitate the presence of bats at different cultivation areas and the creation of bat colonies.

While the first of the structures was being put up, Margarita Parés, Head of Biodiversity at Barcelona City Council, noted that these vertebrates have a “great predatory ability”, with the “dual purpose” of “reducing insects in the city and avoiding the propagation of viruses such as those carried by mosquitoes”.

Capacity for over 300 bats

The towers will go up around urban allotments where elderly people work and at the Viver de Tres Pins plant nursery, a municipal facility with the aim of guaranteeing urban biodiversity. The new structures to create bat colonies feature double nesting boxes which can be easily checked by technicians, are made of wood from sustainable forests and have a capacity for 300 bats. Xavier Puig, an expert from the Galanthus association, explained that “the structures are designed to adapt to current temperatures, much higher than years ago”, adding “their microclimatic conditions adapt to the needs of the animal at all times”.

Puig went on to explain that “in mid-April the breeding season for these animals starts and they should start to populate the boxes, where mainly females and their young will be concentrated”. Barcelona has 8 resident bat species, which are neither dangerous nor aggressive. The only thing to avoid is touching bats as, like most other wild animals, they may bite if agitated.