Bats eat bugs, not people!

Bats eat bugs, so why doesn't everyone love them? I was down by the creek again this evening, watching the bat catch dinner. I thought about all the pesky bugs that bat was eating, and wondered how people miss the importance of bats. (Little Brown bats can eat 1000 bugs/hour!)
We found a baby bat at Crooked River SP once that had been separated from its mother. We tried putting it in an open shoebox and leaving it for the mother to find. She never came back. So as the naturalist, I took it in and tried to raise it to good health. I remember holding the little creature in my hand and it would suckle my thumb. Yes the thought of rabies crossed my mind but since less than half of 1% of bats carry rabies and it was not breaking my skin, I felt it was worth the experience. Sadly my little bat baby died. I am not a good mama bat after all.
Another cool bat experience I remember happened while I was leading a kayak trip for Tidelands on Jekyll. We were portaging across the parking lot when a rat snake fell right in front of me - nearly on the guy's head in front of me! The snake was not in the mood to be stared at by a bunch of kayakers and so it slithered off into the brush. But it left behind the bat that it had wanted for lunch. Without seeing the preceding events, I imagine that what happened was that the rat snake lunged for the sleeping bat and threw himself right out of the tree with his prey in tow. I wonder who was more surprised: the snake, the bat, or us kayakers?
Snakes are yet another misunderstood and under-appreciated creature. For all the good they do eating rodents and insects, they just can't seem to get on some people's good side. I admit that I used to be afraid of snakes. I also admit that my fear was due to ignorance. I was never exposed to or educated about snakes. I just grew up thinking they were scary. I had never touched a snake until due to my job as an environmental educator at Jekyll I was forced to not only handle snakes, but make kids believe that not only was I not afraid of them but I thought they were super cool! Surprisingly, that wasn't hard because I quickly learned that snakes are really cool and really important. Just like bats. Now I can't understand why some people don't love them too.