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Huge SWEPCO earthmoving gear tires
used to build ‘luxury bat condos’ at park

Gregg Trusty
When technicians and volunteers completed the installation of a bat cave for the LSUS Red River Watershed Management Institute in late summer, it was only the second one of its kind in the country and the first designed to control internal temperature.

Essentially, Institute Director Gary Hanson said, “We built ‘luxury condos’ for bats.” Two years in the planning, the bat cave constructed at the Red River Education & Research Park (C. Bickham Dickson Park), a cooperative endeavor between LSUS and the city of Shreveport, is made of huge tires used by Southwestern Electric Power Company earthmoving gear. Equipment to excavate and place the tires came from H&E Equipment Services of Bossier City.

At the heart of the cave is a tire Hanson calls “Big Bertha,” a tire with a 42-inch “footprint” (tread width), 100 inches in overall diameter and 45 inches in its interior opening. Other tires have openings from 33 inches. A 30-inch-diameter galvanized steel culvert with a custom-made “bat gate” provides the opening of the cave, which is the only visible part except for an observation and instrumentation port bored in the top of Big Bertha. The port accommodates monitoring of temperature and humidity, as well as a night-vision camera to monitor bat arrival and movement within the cave.

Hanson said the unusual structure provides the only natural – albeit simulated – habitat for bats in North Louisiana, where “there are no significant natural caves.” When the cave draws significant numbers of bats – which, Hanson said, could take as many as four or five years – it will be responsible for significant mosquito control, as well as preservation of the species.

The cave, which uses 26 tires of varying sizes and measures about 53 feet in length, also provides an “environmentally friendly” way for SWEPCO to recycle the giant tires, something that has created an ongoing problem for the power generator and other companies that use the huge earthmoving equipment in their operations.

Brian Bond, SWEPCO vice president for external affairs and an LSUS graduate, said his company will watch the LSUS bat cave with keen interest. “If this cave works as well as we believe it will,” Bond said, “SWEPCO plans to construct more of them with our used tires. It would be the perfect solution to a ‘really big’ recycling problem.”

Hanson had a cadre of volunteers working on the bat cave project for two years. The initial project team comprised: David Williamson, a geologist and environmental scientist; Kelly Spencer, regional environmental consultant for SWEPCO; Tom Hardaway, of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality; Sgt. Lamar Wilcox, of Barksdale Air Force Base; Dr. Lawrence “Mac” Hardy, professor of biology, emeritus; Scott Foord, a senior environmental sciences major, and Amanda Crnkovic, an instructor of biology. Also providing critical support in the construction of the cave were graduate students Vic Bogosian III and Eric Walsh; Jeremy Anderson, a junior geography major; Bill Fegley, a junior environmental sciences major; Trish Peyton, Red River Watershed Management Institute; Billy Guinn, a senior environmental sciences major, and Eileen Banach, a graduate assistant in the College of Sciences. Hanson also credits outstanding support from the LSUS Facility Services Department in the completion of the project.

Once constructed, the cave was covered with a protective plastic sheet and then “buried” in 350 yards of native red clay and river sand. The resulting mound appears natural and a “grotto” is planned at the entrance.
Fowler & Covington Company donated hauling services to move the dirt to the cave, located on LSUS property adjacent to the oxbow lake in the Research Park. Contractors providing discounts for the project include Oil Field and Industrial Supply (galvanized entrance culvert) and Withrow Enterprises (dirt supplier).
To help “prime the pump,” Hanson said six bat boxes were installed in the park more than a year ago.

“There are no bats in them, yet,” he said, “but it takes a long time for bats to inhabit those kinds of boxes. We are confident bats will find the cave in due time. But, we’ll have to be very patient and continue to monitor and control the internal temperature of the ‘luxury condos’ to let the bats know it’s ‘ready for immediate occupancy.’”

Hanson said a similar structure in California was never inhabited by bats primarily because there was no means of controlling the internal temperature and the cave stayed too hot. The target temperature for the local cave is 69 degrees Fahrenheit, 2 degrees above the local annual average.