Bats on CSPAN

Driving from DC to Baltimore today I was listening to CSPAN radio, and one Republican caller was irate about government waste. "Do you want to know where your government dollars are going? Just go to GRANTS.GOV and type in the word bat: b-a-t. They are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on bats in Colorado! This is ridiculous!" Well, Science Magazine says that bats protect the country's agriculture to the tune of about $23 billion per year, and they're under siege from the White Nose virus and from increasing use of wind turbines. What is the government thinking, trying to spend a few hundred thousand to save a few billion? Freakin' government crazies. Next thing you know they'll be saving we need to invest in roads and bridges and things to save a few trillion per year more (click here for HuffPo version), though I admit that a report by the society of Civil Engineers is probably not the least biased source of information on the topic....