International Bat Festival

Festival Location: Carlsbad, NM, USA

Festival State: New Mexico Festivals

Festival Type(s): Bizarre Festivals, Animal Festivals

By: © Nelson Taylor 2009

For six months out of every year, 300,000 Mexican Freetail Bats call the world famous Carlsbad Caverns their home. Every evening for twenty minutes, the sky above the mouth of the cave blackens as the swarm of bats go out to feed. It is estimated that they eat over 3,000 pounds of insects per night.

In 1998, employees of Carlsbad Caverns National Park launched the only bat festival in America with the dual intention of "having a lot of fun while teaching the American public more about bats," says Kimberly Carroll, spokesperson for the festival.

Now every mid-September park rangers as well as outside professionals give lectures, teach lore, and stage exhibits. The highlight of the weekend is the Sunrise Bat Breakfast, where the public is invited to have a pancake breakfast underneath the bats who return from their midnight bug-athon every A.M. "Nothing like a little guano [bat shit] syrup," Carroll laughs. "No, I'm just kidding," she assures me. What's no joke is that Carroll and the cavern crew have been trying to get one of the many Batman film stars to help promote their festival. "But no luck yet," she says. "We're just a small, batty little town."