Meet Pandora and the Rest of the Gang.. Bats have had a lot of bad press recently – more so than usual! There have always been sections of society that find them unattractive, possibly even scary…but could the humble bat be the answer to our problems rather than the cause…Juanita Shield-Laignel visited Jersey Zoo to find out. I love animals and flora and fauna at large, so was
now I’m managing research for the zoo.”
really excited to be invited to meet Head of Mammals Dominic Wormell and Zoo Research
And as if to underline Eluned talking about free
Manager Eluned Price who is not only Dom’s co-
ranging monkeys, as we approached the bat house –
worker but also his equally dedicated to wildlife, wife.
Dom pointed out silvery marmosets feeding on un-
Eluned explained.
ripe cherries in the trees above. “They roam free, exactly the same as they would in the wild - they can
“I’ve been living in Jersey permanently since 1995,
go down the beach if they want to.” Dom laughed. A
Dom since 1989 and we met here in the zoo. I came
White Necked Crane from the neighbouring plot
over from the UK to do some research on our first
joined in!
woodland group of free ranging monkeys. Dom had been here about year as a Keeper. I then went to
After watching them frolic eating cherries in the
Brazil to study monkeys for a while and then came
trees and a lesson in the breading habits of
back and stayed…the rest as they say is history. So
marmosets, (did you know that marmosets and tamarinds have twins as a breeding strategy, no I didn’t either) we finally alighted the bat enclosure! Dom was really keen to explain the physical building and I was delighted to listen…I confessed to loving Grand Designs especially the cob houses and handbuilt wooden ones. “Being a charity, we never have huge budgets, so this is our recycled modified bat house. Originally built in 2011, it’s just tyres, each rammed with 3 wheelbarrows of earth and weighing around 80 kilos – so they are not going anywhere, stacked on top of each other, insulated with straw and then mud plaster containing all sorts - horsehair, keeper hair, orangutan hair to bind it all together, slapped on top and then painted with lime. Lime is used on cob because it breathes - with ordinary plaster the straw would just rot.” Dom continued “Lots of stuff was donated and as a
6 | www.thejerseylife.co.uk
