From today's Associated Press:

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TIJERAS, N.M. (Jan. 20) - The littlest vampire lurks in the shadow, nestled
under her mother's wing to nurse.

This new arrival is the first captive birth in the United States of a rare
vampire bat - one of two bat species that feed solely on bird blood.

The white-winged vampire pup, her mother and nine other bats were brought to
this rural town in the eastern Sandia Mountains from an almost certain death
on the island of Trinidad.

Bat researchers from three states on opposite sides of the country worked in
tandem to get the tiny vampires to their new home.

``They are all being eradicated,'' said Daniel Abram, founder of the New
Mexico Bat Research Institute. ``So our thought was, 'Now is the time to
intervene, to preserve the genetic material, to establish a viable breeding
colony and to educate the public.'''

Of more than 1,000 species of bats, three are blood-feeders, he said. Most of
the research is on the common vampire bat, a large and agile mammal-feeder.
There is limited information on the other two species, the hairy legged and
white-winged vampire bats.

Abram hopes to change that by caring for the colony so he and other
researchers can learn about the bats.

One promising area of research could benefit the medical community because
vampire bats have something in their saliva that acts to prevent the birds'
blood from clotting, Abram said.

``It's more powerful than any anticoagulant that modern medicine has
developed,'' he said.

Researchers also will study social, mating and feeding behavior and
vocalization.

``We know very little about the white-winged vampire bat in science at all,''
he said.

Abram found a partner in one man who already had done extensive research on
the tiny flying mammal.

Bill Schutt, a biology professor at Southampton College of Long Island
University in New York, made arrangements to return to Trinidad, where he
spent time studying the bats for his Ph.D. research, to catch and import more
bats to Abram's fledgling institute.

The situation for the species there is dire, he said.

``In Trinidad, the white-winged vampire bat population is definitely
dwindling and the population will be extinct in 10 years,'' Schutt said.
``That's partially because they are considered an agricultural pest and
because of habitat destruction.''

As rain forests are cut down to make room for grazing and farmers
increasingly depend on the government's Ministry of Agriculture to take care
of ``pests,'' the bats are caught in nets and destroyed, Abram said.

The white-wing's natural range includes South and Central America, but in the
West Indies, the pervasiveness of the common vampire bat has spelled disaster
for its bird-feeding cousins.

Common vampires have become overpopulated because of easy feeding on cattle,
Schutt said, and the bird-feeders are destroyed along with them - guilty by
association.

Getting the bats into the United States was the next big hurdle. That's where
the expertise of Atlanta zookeeper Susan Barnard came in. A bat-lover who has
raised several flying foxes and vampire bats, Barnard is founder and director
of a nonprofit research organization called Basically Bats.

She spearheaded what became Abram's project. The original mission - to rescue
a different species of vampire bats from a different country - fell through.

Undeterred, Barnard used her worldwide e-mail list and two decades' worth of
connections in the airline and wildlife spheres to get vampire bats to New
Mexico.

She met some resistance from officials who said the bat transfer could not
happen, but she persisted.

``I know better. I worked for the zoo and I have been shipping bats and
reptiles for more than 20 years. So, I know the system - the laws and rules
and regulations. I was able to get them through all of that stuff,'' she said.

Barnard arranged the meeting between Schutt and Abram, and after negotiations
with the governments in Trinidad were final, acquired all the needed permits:
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which mandates the
exotic species be quarantined for six months; from the Florida Game
Commission, where the bats would touch down on their migrant flight; and from
the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, which will monitor the colony
yearly.

``It was very tricky,'' said Abram. ``With vampire bats, they have to have
fresh blood every single day or they perish. So we had 36 hours to get them
from Trinidad to Albuquerque.''

All the bats survived the August trip, and one arrived pregnant. On Nov. 11,
mother Mary quietly and quickly gave birth to the pup.

The bats have adjusted from their home in a grapefruit tree, and there are
plans for Schutt to return to the Caribbean island to import more bats -
which will increase the colony's genetic diversity and its chance of
long-term survival.

For now, the back bedroom of Abram's home is nearly filled with a large
flight cage and a smaller enclosure that holds the youngest bat, her mother
and another small female. The air is a muggy 70 degrees and two humidifiers
keep the bats feeling tropical. Outside a sliding glass door is a chicken
coop.

The chickens themselves are a rescue mission. Donated from an Albuquerque egg
farm, they had never seen the light of day before their debut as bat food.

The adult bats weigh under 40 grams, so the 2-pound chickens don't mind much
they are the main course - the only course, since the bats, after weaning,
never ingest anything but blood.

``It's dark, so they are naturally sleeping. Most of the time the blood gets
taken from the toes and the chickens don't really feel it,'' he said.

The bats - who are able to jump, fly, and run - sneak up on the chickens and
make a small incision by biting them. Contrary to their mythical role as
``blood-suckers,'' they then lap up the pooling blood with their grooved
tongues.

They also sometimes make a sound that imitates the noises of baby chicks.
This calms the birds.

To keep the chickens healthy, Abram makes sure they are bat dinner only once
a week.

Eventually, he hopes to have a free range for the chickens - a section of an
observation and public outreach facility he plans to build on the 20-acre
property where he and his parents live. He envisions turning his home, a
seven-bedroom fixer-upper, into a bed and breakfast for scientists who want
to stay for a while to study the bats.

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Wirt Atmar

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