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Title: Mezcal is more popular than ever—why that’s bad news for bats
Source: [None]
URL Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ ... B2CBE92BD134C5466AF5BCCB4A232D
Published: Oct 14, 2020
Author: DI MINARDI
Post Date: 2020-10-15 15:19:15 by BTP Holdings
Keywords: None
Views: 396
Comments: 2

The lesser long-nosed bat, a crucial pollinator for desert ecosystems, is one of only three bat species in North America that feed on nectar.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TOM VEZO, MINDEN PICTURES

Mezcal is more popular than ever—why that’s bad news for bats As consumption of the drink hits record levels in the U.S., wild agave plants are dwindling—but conservationists say there's a solution.

BY DI MINARDI

PUBLISHED OCTOBER 14, 2020

The oldest distilled spirit in the Americas is making a comeback. In 2019, American imports of mezcal soared by more than 50 percent, surpassing even Mexico in consumption for the first time. It's too early to know the impact of 2020 on sales, but the industry is forecast to continue growing.

As demand for craft cocktails rises, so does the pressure on the agave plant, mezcal’s source, in Mexico. It’s led to an overharvesting of the agaves before they produce nectar, which in turn imperils the plant’s main pollinator, the lesser long-nosed bat.

Tiny but mighty, these one-ounce mammals fly over 750 miles each year—from their winter roosts in central Mexico to birthing caves along the U.S.-Mexico border—in search of flowering cacti and agaves, a large desert plant with spiky leaves. The bats rely on agave nectar to fuel their return trip, and the agaves depend on the bats to cross-pollinate their flowers so they can produce seeds. (Agaves evolved to supply most of their nectar after dark to attract the nocturnal fliers.)

Range of the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae)

© NGP, Content may not reflect National Geographic's current map policy.
Source: IUCN

Lesser long-nosed bats were already in trouble due to habitat loss, but thanks to determined conservation efforts made it off the U.S. Endangered Species List in 2018—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 change—which makes agaves flower earlier, before the bats arrive during their migration—could 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 piña—the 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 flower—just 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 it’s produced. For example, when the liquor is made in the state of Jalisco, it’s 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.

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#1. To: All (#0)

We don't have to go bat shit crazy over this.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2020-10-15   15:20:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: All (#0)

"We can all go to Del Gado's for some tequila." - Paul Newman in Hombre.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2020-10-16   18:57:06 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


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