Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 11, 1990 TAG: 9006110204
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Actually, there is little more to say about the world's second or third largest carp, which was caught on July 5, 1970, in Wytheville.
The 60-pound carp, now stuffed and coated with shellac, remains on display at Wytheville Community College. It is awesome.
There is a bona fide update on the Kroger cats, the band of abandoned felines that dwells in a steep pile of rocks at King Street and U.S. 460 in Northeast Roanoke.
Dan McKee feeds the misfits at the edge of the Kroger grocery store parking lot, showing up every night to refill their bowls of milk, to pour dry cat food into a dented trash can, and to make sure all is well with the homeless kitties.
McKee's story prompted some people to offer help. They donated food and money and praise for his impressive efforts.
McKee's story also lured the frightening characters who lurk among us to creep from the damp, dark, composting corners of life.
Someone scattered the half-dozen cat bowls recently. Someone kicked the beat-up old trash can down the hill.
"Some people are good. Some people are bad," said McKee. He is too busy to work up a good fury, and his voice is colored with more wonder than bitterness.
And finally, the bats.
Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, hang out - literally - in a tool shed at the Natural Bridge Learning Center, a detention center for juveniles.
The kindly folk who run the center prefer not to kill the bats, knowing that a colony of bats will do more to control pesky insects than an orchard of Bug Zappers.
Marvin Johnson of the Mill Mountain Zoo visited the center, got a close-up view of the dozing bats, and wondered aloud if they were members of an endangered species - Indiana bats, perhaps, or the elusive Virginia big-ear.
Johnson has since revisited the tool shed rafters, this time with Dr. John Leffler, a Ferrum College professor.
The bats are neither Indiana, big-eared nor big brown bats.
The men concluded they are little brown bats, a common variety but a big enough colony to merit protection.
Still remaining is the problem of bat and human co-existence. Some of the detainees at the learning center enjoy monkeying with the bats - pelting them and trying to capture them - and it is hard to imagine a happy meeting under those circumstances.
Enter the Cave Conservancy of the Virginias, a private group that realizes that spelunking is much more interesting with a flourishing bat population.
The conservancy has offered to donate a Missouri bat house, four tall posts topped by a roof and plenty of rafters, to be built near the toolshed. To bats, it is a 4BR, 2 1/2 bath, LR, DR, central air, 4-acre lot, great view colonial. Free. With a new furnace.
Johnson remains hopeful that the bats will move with a little bit of prodding, returning the tool shed to full-time human use.
by CNB