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FROM ENDANGERED TO THREATENED? DLNR awaits action on fruit bat reclassification
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Posted on Jun 29 2000
A proposal to reclassify the Mariana fruit bat (Pteropus mariannus) from endangered to threatened status on Guam and extend it throughout the Mariana archipelago is still pending action, according to the Division of Fish and Wildlife, despite public hearings slated between CNMI and federal agencies to expedite the initiative.
Under CNMI laws, the Mariana fruit bat or Fanihi endemic to the Mariana Islands is endangered. A moratorium has been put in place the stop the hunting of the fruit bat in the CNMI.
Considered a traditional food species around the Northern Marianas, Mariana fruit bats have decreased in number in the last 15 years.
A survey last conducted in the early 1980s revealed that the island of Pagan is home to over 2,000 bats.
Fish and Wildlife, which has yet to complete an updated and comprehensive fruit bat survey within the next year, estimates a 90 percent decrease in the species’ population since 1999.
Rota once put the fruit bat population on the island at over 2,000 bats, but reports indicate that the number has dropped to less than half of that today.
The three main factors blamed for the population decline of the endangered species are illegal hunting, poaching, and massive rural development which has eliminated space for the creatures’ foraging and roosting areas.
Historically, the Marianas fruit bat was found on all the southern islands of Saipan, Rota, and Tinian, according to Fish and Wildlife. There was a time when healthy populations of the endangered species could be found on Rota.
A few still exist on Saipan but they are considered extra colonial and are of limited number. Extra colonial bats do live in colonies as bats normally do.
Fruit bats are social animals and live in large colonies sometimes consisting of several hundred members.
Fruit bats nest by hanging upside down in tall upper canopy trees such as Erythrina varigata , or gaogoa.
Meanwhile, public hearings on the reclassification were conducted to serve as an opportunity to explain the proposal and clarify the issue to the public.
The Department of Lands and Natural Resources has yet to hear an update on the proposal. (MM)
