African Roast Bat is Off the Menu, Population Soars
A colony of giant African bats has made a dramatic return from the brink of exctinction, thanks to a conservation drive discouraging people from eating them as delicacies.
As recently as 1989, the Pemba Flying Fox, one of Africa’s largest bat species, was critically endangered, with only a few individuals left on Pemba Island, off the coast of Tanzania. Since an intervention by Flora and Fauna International (FFI), numbers have soared to a staggering 22,000.
According to conservation worker, Joy Juma, “At one time roast bat was a very common dish on Pemba. Now people value the bats for different reasons.”
