Mariana fruit bat

Pteropus mariannus, Mariana's Fruit Bat, or Ulithi Fruit Bat (locally called "fanihi"), is a member of Pteropodidae, a family of bats sharing a canine appearance lending them the nickname "Flying Foxes". Mariana's Fruit bat is endemic to the Northern Mariana's Islands,  Guam, and Ulithi. Habitat loss, over hunting and poaching by humans, and predation by local species such as the invasive brown tree snake of Guam has resulted in a decline in species population. Climate change and other human activity have likewise resulted in a decline in the bat species' resilience to otherwise manageable natural disasters and chance occurrences, such as earth quake, volcanic eruption, and typhoon, which are particularly threatening to the animal's survival. Consumption of the bats by humans has been a long held culinary tradition on local islands, but over hunting of the bats for their meat is a leading factor to population disturbances. Other human contributions to the bats' threatened status include deforestation activity as well as increased military training in air flight and live fire at Andersen Air Force base, where the last remaining island colony of fruit bats lives. 


Conservation efforts for the bats involve limited protective legislation. In 1966 the government of Guam reduced the year round hunting allowance of the bats to a 10-week season and established four conservation reserves. The last remaining wild populations of bats can be found at the Guam National Wildlife Refuge, along with the Mariana crow and the Serianthes nelsonii, an endangered species of tree. A recovery plan for the bat was crafted in 1990 and revised in 2010. Link to updated version of the draft can be read here.

More bat facts: The range of the Mariana Fruit Bat limited to the islands of  Guam, Rota, Saipan, Tinian, Agrihan, Sarigan, Anatahan, Pagan, Guguan, Maug, Asuncion, Palau, Yap, Ulithi, and Kosrae. However, remaining known populations are mainly found on the island of Guam where they roost and feed in limestone forests and the occasional coconut grove. Fruit bats are primarily nocturnal, leaving to forage for food at sunset. Known fruit favorites of this bat include coconut, breadfruit, papaya, fadang, figs, kafu, gaogao, kapok flowers, and talisai, but they are able to eat a variety other plant material as well.

POLLINATORS

Flying foxes, as well as other bats, are a keystone pollinating species, dispersing up to 60,000 seeds a night from nocturnal flowering plants. Humans could never compete with this rate of dispersal and rely on pollinators to plant the world's forests and to maintain ecological communities along with all the biodiversity contained. A loss of pollinator species represents a mass global crisis which threatens to exacerbates human induced deforestation. Reforestation efforts around the globe depend on conservation and protection of pollinating species such as insects, birds, and bats to return equilibrium to the world's forests and ecosystems. 

Andersen Air force Base, under review of the National Environmental Policy Act, is both responsible for the species declined by way of increased air traffic and military training, as well a a source of conservation effort for the bats. Efforts involve multiphase expansion operations to establish increased conservation area as well as much riskier and experimental operations that seem much less well devised, like this one aimed at reduced brown tree snake populations.