Austin Texas Bats.

The bats colonies in Austin, Texas, are quite a tourist attraction! When engineers reconstructed downtown Austin's Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980, they had no idea that new crevices beneath the bridge would make an ideal bat roost.

Although bats had lived there for years, it was headline news when they suddenly began moving in by the thousands. Reacting in fear, many people petitioned to have the bat colony eradicated.

About that time, Bat Conservation International stepped in and told Austinites the surprising truth: that bats are gentle and incredibly sophisticated animals, that bat-watchers have nothing to fear if they don't try to handle bats. And bats eat from 10,000 to 30,000 pounds of insects nightly.

As the city came to appreciate its bats, the population under the Congress Avenue Bridge grew to be the largest urban bat colony in North America.

With up to 1.5 million bats spiraling into the summer skies, Austin now has one of the most unusual tourist attractions anywhere.