The circus has always been a little batty, but performances across Mount Rainier National Park this weekend and early next week are bringing a whole new meaning to the word.
In a unique blend of circus arts, wildlife education and comedy, 30-minute performances across the park began Friday to teach attendees of all ages about bats.
“Mad About Bats” shows will “celebrate the park residents that gobble up mosquitos and see with their ears!” stated a Facebook post from the national park.
Friday shows were set to be held at 10 a.m. at the Ohanapecosh Campground, 2 p.m. at the Sunrise Visitor Center and 6:30 p.m. at White River Campground. Saturday’s shows are set for the same times and locations.
Monday’s Mad About Bats skits will take place at 10 a.m. at Cougar Rock Campground and 2 p.m. at the Paradise Visitor Center. On Tuesday, shows will take place at 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. in front of the Longmire Administration Building.
All performances are free to attend with entrance into the park. After each 6:30 p.m. show will be a one-hour, evening acoustic “bio blitz,” a technology that shows which species of bat are active in the area. During the bio blitz, attendees can listen to and record different bat species’ vocalizations.
The program was developed by Dr. Tara Chestnut, a wildlife ecologist who worked with Mount Rainier National Park’s wildlife team to develop an educational program.
“By taking people out on a bat acoustic bio blitz, I’m hoping to inspire a new generation of ‘bat watchers,’” Chestnut wrote in a text to The Chronicle. “I know I’m not going to convince everyone to love bats like I do, but I do hope I can convince people to respect and appreciate them from a distance, even if they don’t like them.”
Chestnut developed the show with circus performers JuggleMania’s Rhys Thomas and “Wild West Roper” David Lichtenstein. The duo have performed “solo circus shows” about science concepts on tours at libraries and schools in the past, she said.
“I am a huge fan of vaudeville and circus arts,” Chestnut said, later adding, “I’m so thrilled to be sharing this work.”
The program has been two years in the making, Chestnut said, and will incorporate trick lasso work to demonstrate the sounds of echolocation and juggling to show how bats move.
Bat puppets, comedy, circus skills and audience involvement combined with the educational tricks are meant to educate adults and children alike, according to the park’s Facebook post.
Shows are being held at four of the eight National Parks in the North Coast and Cascades Network, Chestnut said, and nine different schools.
She knows bats evoke a wide range of emotions, “from awe and joy to fear and disgust,” but bats play a vital role in agricultural and forest pest management, Chestnut said. One little brown bat can eat up an average of one mosquito every 3.5 seconds.
Perhaps their nocturnal, erratic nature makes them so hard to understand, Chestnut supposed.
“If they were active during the day and people could see bats foraging like the amazing acrobats they are, I wonder if our feelings about bats would be warmer, like many of us feel toward birds,” she said.
It’s true that bats can carry diseases such as rabies, Chestnut noted, but “What I find so fascinating about our shared human condition is that cats and dogs can harbor those same disease(es) yet we actively invited them into our homes and domesticated them.”
