MARYSVILLE – Boomer Kelley and his friends want to increase the city’s bat population by 2,000, and they’ve built homes for the little bug-eaters to lure them here.
Boomer, 14, a Boy Scout since he was 8, has completed most of the requirements to become an Eagle Scout. Boomer went to the city parks office looking for a project that serves the community.
When he learned that Mayor Dennis Kendall was concerned about the spread of West Nile virus and had asked city parks staff to build some bat houses, he chose that project.
“It was both fun and challenging,” Boomer said.
He’s a member of Marysville’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where many of the youth are Scouts, and the city’s parks are among their favorite place, he said. The youth groups meet monthly to work on projects, and he enlisted them, along with some Scout leaders and other adults, to help with the bat houses.
Actually, they’re more like small condominiums, as each vertical box accommodates 200 bats.
Boomer and his father, Clarence Kelley, researched the topic at the library and on the Internet and chose a design, then cut out all the wood pieces for the group to assemble. Some local businesses donated materials or money toward the project, which they estimated cost $350 to $400.
They built 10 houses, which stand 13 feet tall. They started installing them Friday at Jennings Memorial Park on Armar Road. They got about half up, despite steady rain that made filling the postholes with cement a bit tricky. They plan a second work party, likely next week.
“The best time to put them in is in the fall because they hibernate,” Boomer said.
The boxes are open on the bottom. Bats will find their new homes through echolocation, then scramble up inside them to hang from the plastic mesh inside, he said.
Boomer will check back in the spring to make sure bats are moving into their new digs.
“Then they’ll help the community because they’ll eat all the mosquitoes,” he said.
Reporter Cathy Logg: 425-339-3437 or logg@heraldnet.com.
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