Boyd Matson | Wild Chronicles

Bats in the Devil’s Sinkhole

Have you heard the term, “slicker than bat ….. guano”?  I think I’ve heard it before, but if not, I know for sure I have experienced it.  On two different occasions, assignments for National Geographic have taken me to the bat caves of South Texas and the Devil’s Sinkhole.  I was reminded of those experiences this week when talking to National Geographic photographer Joel Satore on my radio show National Geographic Weekend.

Joel was in a bat cave in Uganda when he looked up just as a bat flying overhead dropped a guano bomb.  It was a direct hit in his eye.  That’s a wet contact, the same as a bite for putting you at risk for a disease the bat might be carrying.  The marburg virus had been detected in the cave so Joel was potentially at risk.  The only thing to do was fly home and wait twenty-one days to see if he had contracted anything.  It was a nerve racking time since death was a real possibility if he had been infected.  Fortunately he was fine and you can see his pictures in the current issue of National Geographic Magazine.

But Joel’s story got me thinking about my own bat cave adventures and I shared some of those at the end of the radio show.  There was the chance for contracting some airborne diseases in one of the caves I was in, but nothing like the marburg virus.  To get into the Devil’s Sinkhole required a long rappel.  But it turned out the real challenge wasn’t the rappel, or rabies, or respatory ailments, it was bat guano.  I survived the bat caves, however my clothes weren’t as lucky.  No matter how many times I washed them, the smell wouldn’t come out and the dog wouldn’t stop chewing them.  I finally had to throw them away.  This video shows some of the highlights of going into the Devil’s Sinkhole and the Eckert James River bat cave.