A Letter from Bats to Humankind

Dear humans,

My name is Bat. Bat – “Fook” – also means “Prosperity” in Chinese. Despite the fact I am thought of as “spooky-looking,” I am actually over one thousand years old because I can swallow my own breath. Some of my oldest bat friends can be found in caverns of the hills in China. Some of us are silver-like in color and are feed on stalactites.

I have a specific role. I can host the parasites of more than 1,000 viruses. I am an important host for the rabies virus, Nipah virus, and Hantavirus.

My contribution to all living beings in the world is to host the parasites of many viruses on myself, lest they go out and endanger all living beings. Not only that, but my stool is used in Chinese medicine called Ye Mingsha to treat some diseases of human beings.

I know that my body is poisonous, so I would rather live in a damp and cold cave. With my own strength, I sealed the virus for tens of thousands of years and only emerge in summer at night. I am a lonely Pandora’s box. I deliberately formed a face of death, just to keep all beings away from me.

I never expected that human greed and appetite go this far. Humans, don’t you know? Once you open Pandora’s box, the devil will escape to haunt you!

You can eat me as a delicious treat, but the viruses that I have stored away, you have caused, through ignorance, the loss of my host. So you must find a new host.

And you guys, isn’t the fat cells in bodies breeding grounds on which they depend?

I also want to tell you, do you know how the MERS virus spread in Africa and the Middle East?

In 2012, WHO announced that the virus was passed from me to camels, and then from camels to humans. I can only lament for myself that my lifelong efforts have been wrongly paid back.

I can only help humans to spread the law of nature. Your wildlife protection law is not protecting me, you are protecting yourselves. I would also like to advise you that human beings must follow nature’s way. Human beings are the small souls in the vast universe.

Don’t think that you can live without fear in this life. The law of nature is the fairest. When you don’t cherish other beings, the evil has already arrived quietly.

Finally, I have to say to human beings that this letter not only represents me, a bat, but also snakes, rats, pigs, catfish, the insects, and the entire animal kingdom. The animals all agree we are more afraid of humans than humans are of us!

Good luck to all mankind, good fortune and longevity in life!

Bat