Overzealous tourist brought wooden stake to New Mexico cave filled with 500,000 bats

As many as 500,000 bats live at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and officials there wonder if a recent visitor took vampire lore a bit too seriously — by bringing a wooden stake to the colony’s front door.

“It appears as if one of our visitors was prepared to hunt vampires,” Carlsbad Caverns officials posted on Facebook.

“This wooden stake was left behind in the bat flight amphitheater. However, no garlic was found by park rangers.”

The park shared a photo of the stake, with the amphitheater as background. How someone got the stake past the front gate wasn’t mentioned.

Legend has it vampires travel great distances by transforming into bats — and a wooden stake is the best defense.

And, yes, vampire bats are real, but don’t live in the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert, the park said.

“Of the 17 different species of bats known to have inhabited Carlsbad Caverns National Park, none are considered vampire bats,” officials wrote.

“There are three species of bats in Mexico and South America that rely on blood as a food source. The common vampire bat will lap up the blood of other mammals while the hairy-legged vampire bat and the white-winged vampire bat will feed on the blood of birds. It is only in rare situations that humans are vulnerable to bites.”

The discovery was shared on social media because such things do pose a threat at the 46,766-acre park and its 120 caves, officials said.

“All jokes aside, we would like to remind everyone that Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a fragile resource that we can all collectively preserve,” the park wrote.

“Objects as seemingly harmless as a wooden stake can be harmful to wildlife and disrupt the natural processes of cave growth.”

As for what the park’s bats do like to eat, it’s mostly “moths and beetles,” officials said.

“The large colony which roosts inside the cavern can consume a few tons of these insects per night,” the park wrote.

This story was originally published August 22, 2021 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Overzealous tourist brought wooden stake to New Mexico cave filled with 500,000 bats."