the first bat species ever to do so. Down to about a thousand animals in the 1980s, the species had bounced back to around 200,000 throughout Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. Yet the continued boom in mezcal, coupled with climate changewhich makes agaves flower earlier, before the bats arrive during their migrationcould reverse these gains, conservationists warn. A 2020 study reported that the species, which is considere d near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is declining again.
But some experts see a solution: Sustainable harvesting of agave, which encourages farmers to selectively harvest agave plants, leaving some to reproduce. The plants die when harvesters remove their piñathe heart of the agave and source of their coveted sugar, which is distilled into alcohol. Some organizations, such as the Mexico-based grassroots group Colectivo Sonora Silvestre, are working with liquor companies to encourage a sustainable harvest by letting some plants flowerjust for the bats.
Picture of a lesser long nosed bat
Lesser long-nosed bats
Leptonycteris yerbabuenae
GROUP NAME: Colony
AVERAGE LIFE SPAN IN THE WILD: 12 years
SIZE: Three inches long
WEIGHT: 0.5 to 0.9 ounces
IUCN RED LIST STATUS: Near threatened
This is crucial not only for the bats themselves but for preserving their link in keeping the ecosystem healthy as pollinators, says Jeremiah H. Leibowitz, executive director at Cuenca Los Ojos, a conservation organization in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. (See photos of farmers harvesting mezcal in Oaxaca.)
It's an extremely diverse region of the globe, but it's also a very fragile region of the globe, Leibowitz says. Everything has to be in balance in order for it to work.
A hundred years of overuse
Mezcal has various names, derived from the Mexican region in which its produced. For example, when the liquor is made in the state of Jalisco, its called tequila, while mezcal made in Sonora is called bacanora. Tequila has been popular for decades, but Americans new interest in small-batch mezcal suddenly brought bacanora into the limelight as well.