File:West African children with freshly-caught bats (13997300073).jpg
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Cleared-up high-resolution scan of a previously posted photograph. Taken in April of 1968 outside a cave near the top of Kufan Mountain, not far from Balandugu, Northern Province, Sierra Leone. In 2014 it was suspected that bats might be spreading the Ebola virus that has killed numerous people in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. It might be of interest to know how the bats were killed since bodily fluids seem to be the main way Ebola transmission occurs. Kufan mountain has numerous slit caves that are totally dark and are a favourite place for bats. People would stand at the mouth of the cave with sticks, branches, etc. and then convince a not-too-bright person (in this case, me) to walk as far into the cave as he dared with his torch (flashlight) turned off. Then he would turn it on and the bats would head to the mouth of the cave (which was not very wide) and would be swatted from both sides. Some of the bats were badly injured and bleeding (download the highest resolution version of this photo and zoom in on the bats to see). One thing these kids failed to tell me is that when I turned on the flashlight, I should duck. I was hit by several bats and one even got tangled in my hair. The bats (cooked) tasted fine, but not nearly as good as Cane Rat ("Cutting Grass"), which was also a major wild source of protein. Perhaps the spread of Ebola to humans is affected by exposures to fresh bodily fluids from the way they are hunted. Another mention of the hunting and eating of bats in Sierra Leone can be found in the "Annual Report on Monuments and Relics Commission for the year 1957," p. 11: "[W]e went to investigate reports of caves near a mountain by the name of Benduhun.... It would appear that a few years ago some of the population used to go to catch bats in the month of November, when the weather was rather cool, so that the bats in the cave would be huddled together in a bunch to keep warm. They were then knocked down with long sticks into nets. .... Our guides informed us that they no longer went there to collect bats, which are very sweet and do not require cleaning before eating, as the diet of the bats is only fruit." |
| Date | circa 1967 |
| Source | West African children with freshly-caught bats |
| Author | John Atherton |
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by gbaku at https://flickr.com/photos/72105154@N00/13997300073. It was reviewed on 2 May 2021 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0. |
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| Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| current | 15:05, 2 May 2021 | | 4,152 × 2,897 (4.33 MB) | English Roger (talk | contribs) | Transferred from Flickr via #flickr2commons |
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