Off the coast of Tanzania , nestled against Africa ’s easterly coast , baby-sit the island of Pemba . While it ’s not a tourist hot spot , Pemba boasts bedazzle shore line , complete withcoral reef , sprawling mangroves and clove Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , which give the air a faintly spicy aroma . Perhaps more telling than the pristine geography is the anatomy of one of Pemba ’s native occupier .
The Pemba fly foxbatis one of the largest bat species in the world , with a wingspan stretch 5.5 feet ( 1.6 metre ) across . Since the nineties , conservationists have knead feverishly to preserve the dwindle population . The take flight fox bat used to be a routine saucer on Pemba dinner tables , and people hunted so sharply that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ) classify the squash racquet as endangered in 1992 .
Although the IUCN relegate the flying fox bat ’s conservation status from endangered up to vulnerable in 2008 , it is n’t rare to run across bats on the bill of fare in other African and Asian venue . concord to Bat Conservation International , there are more than 1,100 species of bats around the globe , composing about one - quarter of all mammalian mintage . Moreover , the largest , meatiest variety fly the sky in the Eastern hemisphere .
bat on the Menu
Travelers in parts of China , Thailand , Guam and even Australia might scarper across bats in intellectual nourishment markets and restaurants . mixture offruit bats , including the sizeable vanish slyboots bat , are the most popular to use up . When it fare sentence to cook them up , Pemba islanders usually roast their bats , and other cultures might toss scrap of chiropteran into soup and stir - nestling . In 1976 , Calvin W. Schwabe , defender of foreign foods the world over , offered up a simple Samoan formula for cricket bat in his Holy Scripture " Unmentionable Cuisine . " After skinning and disemboweling the bats , Schwabe recommended cutting up the meat and either baking or deep - frying it withsalt , black pepper and onion .
In " Extreme Cuisine , " famed chef Anthony Bourdain cautions traveling gastronomes of a peculiarly biting smell that wafts from simmering at-bat . But the actual flavor should be far more benignant . As with many closed book inwardness , cricket bat reportedly taste a lot like chicken . To lift up one ’s own batty entrée , Bourdain says to mollify it with some peppers , onions or garlic ( not unlike a roast wimp recipe ) to extenuate that strong scent .
Fruit Bats and Emerging disease
try local bat may not be a smart choice in light of recent medical developments . In Guam , officials linked flying Charles James Fox bats to a form of dementedness call ALS / PDC ; among the native Chamorro people , the incidence rate was 50 to 100 meter higher than sample populations . And while fruit bats ' insect and fruit diet may seem harmless enough , they may also harbor some unwanted and downright dangerous diseases . Medical expert have trace strains ofSARS , Ebola and other come forth disease back to them . Fruit bats in Gabon , for case , have been culprit for carry Marburg and Ebola virus . Officials are mostly interested about bats leaving behind pathogens after nipping a man of fruit or passing them along to another animal through corrupt spittle , as in the case of Nipahvirusin Malaysia . Nevertheless , if savvy travelers are offered morsels of deep - fried bat , they ought to select health over ethnic etiquette and courteously decline the exotic snack .
