Business View Magazine - November 2016

Business View Magazine - November 2016 19 with these bat caves as we live out this legacy,” says Julio Torruella, Global Environment Director for Bacardi, about the new bat houses installed at the Bacardi Bottling Corporation campus. The facil- ity, part of the Bacardi group of companies, bottles all Bacardi spirits consumed in the U.S. and has re- ceived international recognition for its contributions to wildlife habitat conservation and education by the Wildlife Habitat Council. The wooden bat caves, which stand 20-feet off the ground, are engraved with both the Bacardi and Lubee Bat Conservancy logos. The mutual goal between the two organizations is to preserve and provide crucial habitats for the local bat population to help maintain the community’s natural wetlands, farming, and forest areas. In fact, the Bacardi wild- life team consists of 11 employees who volunteer to manage 21 acres of wildlife habitat as part of a “Wildlife at Work” program that has been certified by the Wildlife Habitat Council since 2013. Several of these Bacardi employees, as well as several Lubee Bat Conservancy employees, worked together on this project. “Monitoring of the bat houses will be conducted in a responsible manner, so we do not disturb the bats as they take residence in the new shelters,” says Brian Pope, Director of Lubee Bat Conservancy. “For this reason, we don’t have cameras inside the shelters. Acoustic surveys conducted in late spring recorded 716 identifiable calls revealing four bat species on the Bacardi property.” The three bat caves hold up to a total of 500 bats. The two single-chambered bat caves can house be- tween 50-100 bats, and the one triple-chambered cave can hold between 200-300 bats. In just a short few months, the shelters will likely be active with many local bats.