Original subtitles

Mexico.

A wild land.

The animals that live here do so in greater numbers

and variety than almost anywhere else on Earth.

With so much at stake,

one man has fought tirelessly to protect the wildlife of Mexico,

but there's a particular creature he's devoted his life to saving.

Rodrigo Medellin is the champion

of one of the world's most hated animals.

Bats.

There's little bats, big bats,

there's short-snouted, long-snouted, big eyes,

little eyes, long ears, short ears,

every type of bat.

He is embarking on the culmination of his life's work,

a mission to save both his favourite bat

and the legendary drink of Mexico - tequila.

In Mexico and in other places because of what I do,

they call me the bat man.

All I want is that people get the right information about bats

and about how important they are for us,

and if that entails them calling me the bat man,

so be it.

I AM the bat man.

Rodrigo Medellin was not like other children.

While his friends kept gerbils and hamsters,

Rodrigo's pets were vampire bats.

I remember when I was a kid,

I would keep vampire bats in the bathroom of my home,

feeding them blood from cows - or from me, sometimes -

keeping blood in the fridge so that I could feed the bats every night.

That was not easy to withstand, and still my parents let me do that.

It was fascinating to me to see these bats feeding and interacting

with each other, and they'd take care of each other so well.

It was a lot of fun.

It was the beginning of a lifetime's obsession.

But Rodrigo grew up in a world that loathes bats.

In the 19th century, there was this author who wrote a book

entitled Dracula,

that really touched the imagination of people around the world

and that has turned bats into monsters, unfortunately.

Bats were so hated in Mexico

because of their association with evil

that people would hunt them down and kill them,

burning them in their caves.

Their populations crashed.

To this day, people are afraid,

saying that they're filthy,

and that they are everything bad in the world.

That is really not the case at all.

A kilometre into a mountain south of Mexico City,

Rodrigo is searching for a bat so persecuted

it was nearly lost for ever.

It's called the lesser long-nosed bat, or tequila bat.

This is one of his favourite childhood haunts.

For most people, caves would sound like a terrifying place,

like a place where they don't belong.

But caves are my perfect place.

Caves are an incredibly peaceful place.

Rodrigo has spent much of the last 20 years underground,

working to save the tequila bat.

Bat guano all over.

Under that layer of bat faeces

is a whole layer of living insects.

Beetles, beetle larvae, fly larvae,

moth larvae, that are just moving everything, everything, everything.

You look and everything is moving.

Because bats move from cave to cave, he never knows what he'll find.

As he approaches the roost, he must leave his lantern outside.

Our cameras can see what he cannot.

No-one has seen this before.

Look at this. There are so many bats around us.

In this beautiful space.

There are thousands of bats here, of many different species -

perhaps even the ones he's after.

But Rodrigo can't see them.

If I close my eyes now,

it's exactly the same as if I have them open, I see absolutely nothing.

In terms of my ears,

I am hearing a stream of bats coming from that direction around me

and passing through, and then a bunch of bats squealing back there.

I can picture a map of the cave in my head.

The bats also navigate using their ears,

but they have evolved the ability to see with sound.

They make high-pitched sounds beyond our hearing

and listen for their echoes off objects.

This how they can fly in the dark.

This is what is called the hall of hell -

temperatures well above our comfort zone,

close to 38-40 degrees Celsius,

very high relative humidity - all of my clothes are completely wet.

People associate this heat with hell.

But I feel perfectly at home here.

Rodrigo pushes into the deepest chamber

to find out if his precious tequila bats are here.

He may not be able to see the bats, but the guano beneath his feet

is a vivid history of what's lived in this cave.

And Rodrigo knows his guano.

Oh, yes - this is a lump of lesser long-nosed bat poop.

This tells me that this is indeed a lesser long-nosed bat colony.

They're here and, thanks to Rodrigo's work, they're safe.

Today, gates and guardians protect this cave.

Now, Rodrigo must catch one to see if they're healthy.

To do this without harming them,

he uses mist nets, too fine for the bats' echolocation to detect.

My first lesser long-nosed bat came into my hands when I was 15.

We knew nothing about it.

Then we found out that they were really endangered.

We were looking at roosts that were known to have

many thousands of lesser long-nosed bats

and when we visited them, they only had a few hundred, or none.

That immediately told us that they were in trouble.

So this is one of my best friends.

This is the lesser-long nosed bat.

This is an amazing animal

that migrates for thousands of kilometres.

It's a small, but powerful flier. Look at this amazing wing.

This is what made bats so successful in the night skies.

Long-fingered hand here, and a very long arm here.

You can see both vein down here

and a series of muscles stretches here.

It's very much alive,

so that they can control making it broader or narrower.

That makes them masters of the air.

It's getting ready to start a really exciting time,

a really demanding time,

a really dangerous time too, which is migration.

The migration of this tiny endangered bat

is one of the greatest in the animal world.

This epic journey happens at night,

so it's taken Rodrigo 20 years to work out their route.

Over his life, he has discovered many of the roosts they use

on their 2,000-kilometre journey and protected them, one by one.

The entire migration is powered by nectar.

I'm going to give it a bit of sugar water here.

This incredible tongue that they have

is the perfect instrument for them

to reach into deep flowers like agave flowers.

It's incredible that an animal this big can do what these guys do.

I love them because of that.

Rodrigo is about to immerse himself in the bats' world.

By tracking their entire migration,

he wants to see if he's achieved what many thought impossible -

saving the tequila bats from extinction.

The stakes are high - their fate is tied to Mexico's most famous export.

As a Mexican, I am proud of my country...

..and part of the Mexican spirit

is a beverage that is called tequila.

These spiky plants are the source of tequila.

Tequila is a very important part of the Mexican economy

and it is owed to bats.

Bats provide pollination for the tequila plant, the agave plant.

Mexico relies on tequila.

Over a quarter of a billion litres were exported last year.

Every plant is harvested by hand, by men called jimadores...

..in a trade passed down from father to son.

The agaves are planted where they've always grown -

in the flight path of the bats.

What agaves do is, they grow and grow and grow

and then, when the time comes, they send this amazing shoot,

huge, flowering stalk, up into the sky.

They invest all of their energy that they have accumulated over 15 years

into one single reproductive event

that basically costs them their lives.

The link that they formed has been here for millions of years.

Agaves rely on the bats to move their pollen.

Bats rely on agaves so that they can survive.

We could not have this amazing product

if it wasn't for the bats,

and I can't help but think of the bats, and thank the bats

for the incredible service they give us.

Without the bats, there would be no tequila.

Bats are so vital in spreading pollen and seeds

that they're known as the farmers of the tropics.

Without them, our crops and forests would collapse,

with terrible consequences for us all.

The tequila bats' journey takes them west...

..and they sweep through the valleys and plains of Central Mexico.

The land beneath them changes constantly.

And always, they pass over us.

Until, 500km west of where they started,

they hit the Pacific Ocean, and the uninhabited islands of Chamela.

Rodrigo has heard reports that the bats have been gathering here.

He's never been to this cave before.

To his horror, it's full of cockroaches.

He hates cockroaches.

So many cockroaches, and I almost fell on them!

But he's astonished by what he finds.

This is incredible.

So many lesser-long nosed bats, all around me.

It's so good to see that their numbers are stable and big.

The tequila bats have come together from all across Mexico

with one thing on their minds.

They're mating here right now,

and this is a very well-protected cave.

The ocean takes care of that.

While Lucas, the boatman, tucks into some oysters,

Rodrigo pushes deeper into the cave,

and the source of the bats' aphrodisiac.

Oh, yes!

A big male, which is what we expected in this cave.

It's full of males getting ready to reproduce.

Such well-tempered bat,

with big testicles, ready for action,

loaded with sperm, and ready for the females that are gathering

here in this cave, and this should have a patch on its back.

Oh, yeah, the patch is there, very oily.

I can feel it with my finger here.

That patch is put there by the males.

They put faeces and urine and saliva there,

and that is very attractive to the females.

The females are going to come and take a whiff of that

and just fall in love with this guy.

This boy is ready to mate

and it's time to let him go so that he can do his deed.

There you go, my friend.

On the roof of this cave,

an extraordinary mass seduction is taking place.

Once the females find a male whose sex potion entrances them,

they'll choose him as their mate.

And in three months, 1,500 kilometres away,

a single baby bat will be born.

It may be alluring for the females,

but for Rodrigo, the smell is overpowering.

This is a really stinky cave...

..and there's lots and lots of bats here.

Lots of them everywhere.

And this is...oh!

And this is certainly a challenging cave to be in, to be sure.

Eventually, the smell and the cockroaches are too much,

even for the bat man.

The bats will stay on this island for weeks,

mating and building their strength,

before they continue on the next stage in their migration.

The path the bats must now take

lies between the mountains of the Sierra Madre and the sea.

This fertile land is called the nectar corridor.

Because here, every year,

billions of flowers open at night.

The bats must feed on these constantly

to fuel their journey, otherwise they'll die.

And they have to time it perfectly.

Over millions of years, the bats have learned by trial and death

to track where the nectar is going to show up next.

Bats are early or bats are late, plants die and bats die.

Mexico is developing fast.

The land the bats rely on is being swallowed,

and nature is being destroyed.

But, because of Rodrigo, at least some is safe.

30 years ago, he was asked to assist the new government

to devise laws to save the wildlife of Mexico.

Land-owners, the Mexican people,

worked as partners to create a vast network of linked nature reserves

made from their private and the government's public land.

I've worked with small groups, big groups,

individuals, in the government halls, everywhere.

All we need is a little bit of information

and people are going to change about bats.

Now, over a quarter of Mexico is protected land.

Where other countries have lost much of their wildlife,

Mexico is a rare success story.

But, just when the bat populations look safe, disaster strikes.

Within weeks of each other, not one but two hurricanes hit Mexico

and batter the entire Pacific coast.

This is a threat beyond even Rodrigo's control.

He loses the tequila bats.

Across the country, he sends his students to everywhere

the bats have ever been found.

For three weeks they search, day and night.

This has never happened before.

Yeah, OK. So the bats are not here.

Well, I don't know.

If many of the bats have been killed,

the future for their species is bleak.

The way I feel right now, the trail is getting cold.

I'm not sure if we're going to find them.

Our only hope is to keep poking and looking

in every little piece of bat habitat that we know of,

to see if they are there.

It's a tense time for Rodrigo.

He puts out rewards for any leads.

At last, one of his students thinks they've seen a tequila bat

in a cave called Las Vegas.

They block the exits and he heads in alone.

Finally he emerges,

triumphant.

I found them!

It took weeks of searching everywhere.

It took two hurricanes to move the bats around

so that we could not track them, but they're here.

I got, like, er, maybe like ten, so the population is healthy.

Another dot in the migration of this species.

I'm so relieved. I've found them!

Oh, wow!

Oh, look at this!

This is a pregnant female.

Her wings are in great shape.

Wow! I can feel the head right here,

and the rump over here.

This is the baby right here.

The baby is really big.

I can't imagine the energy that this bat has spent

just flying around with a foetus growing inside her.

Thank you, mum. You're ready to go.

With proof that there are bats here in numbers,

he can get legal protection for the cave.

The tequila bats have another vital place of permanent safety.

The bats are aiming for a cave, deep in the heart of this desert,

in the badlands, just south of the US border.

There are no agaves to feed off en route.

Instead, the tequila bats,

nearing the end of their three-month pregnancy,

must seek the flowers of the giant columnar cactuses.

These flowers accommodate almost half of the bat's body into them.

It means millions of years of evolution

in which the flowers have become perfect receptacles

for the bat's head and snout and tongue

and the very long tongue of the bat goes into those flowers

and lick the nectar out,

and they come out completely covered with pollen.

They move out, they go to another columnar cactus

and there is pollination.

Because he knows the bats will come to the cactus flowers,

Rodrigo has a chance to solve a puzzle that's long been on his mind.

How far can they fly in one night?

It is a female - very lively,

in very, very good health.

We're going to mark it with a blue powder.

Rodrigo coats the bats he catches in harmless UV dust,

which they will lick off and digest.

We keep the head out so that the powder

does not affect its senses.

That should be enough.

The bats will now head on to their roost.

And, if Rodrigo can find a glowing bat-dropping there,

he can prove how far they've flown, at least, in theory.

No-one has tried this before.

At daybreak, 50km from the cactuses,

Rodrigo finally arrives at the most important cave,

the end point of their long journey.

The birth cave of the tequila bats.

This cave is the largest colony...

..that this bat has anywhere in the world.

It's Rodrigo's great hope that enough bats have made it here

to sustain their population.

The future of the species depends on what will take place

in this ancient volcano.

We cannot get in the cave during the day.

We would create chaos, worrying females

that are taking care of their babies.

Rodrigo must wait by the cave mouth.

Night falls.

And then...

..at first a trickle, then more emerge.

At least some of the bats have made it.

It's a tremendous relief for Rodrigo.

Now the mothers have left the cave to find food,

it's safe for Rodrigo to go inside.

They turn on their UV torches,

and carefully comb the cave.

Ah!

Blue poop.

This is proof that these bats are really long distance fliers,

doing 50km one-way trips,

and then coming back every night.

This is a really good find - confirmation.

To fly to the cactus where Rodrigo dusted it, and back,

is a 100km round trip.

No-one suspected the bats could fly so far.

This is a spotted skunk, and it's coming out now.

I have never seen it before.

Look at the incredible pattern and the huge feathered plume,

advertising that it is about to spray us...

..but it chooses to move off into the dark.

Rodrigo moves far deeper into the maze of the volcano

than he's ever been before.

We can check on the reproductive success

by gauging how many babies are hanging from the roof of a cave.

At last, far below the desert surface,

the bats' secret, their nursery.

This is a group of babies,

and there's a mix in their ages.

Most of them are about a week old.

Very few are one-day-old and two-day-old babies.

It's always good to see them.

These are the first babies to be born of what will hopefully

be hundreds of thousands.

The future of the entire species hangs in this cave.

They synchronise their births so that everything happens

in the space of two weeks, three weeks - that's it.

You have twice that many bats in there.

This is...this is huge.

Oh, yeah, this is a good spot for the camera.

Rodrigo sets up remote cameras.

He can't stay when the mothers return,

so he's never seen what happens here during the day

when they're reunited with their pups.

In the hours before dawn, the bats flood into the ancient volcano,

like an eruption in reverse.

As the day passes on the desert surface,

the cameras record the bats' hidden lives deep underground.

At nightfall, once the females have left again,

they can retrieve the footage.

It's a long night, watching through the many hours recorded.

This is er... This has to be at around 7pm or 8pm.

Nobody has seen a nursery in the process of building up

the numbers of babies that are left behind by the mothers.

But she's pregnant, right? Not this one? No, this one.

And then...

Oh, look at this!

Having a baby! Having a...

She's having a baby!

No es possible!

The baby is coming out!

THEY SPEAK SPANISH

This is incredible.

She's licking, scratching,

and again...

Wow!

The camera has captured something never seen before.

Look at the tiny forearm! The face - this is the face! Yes!

First its head, then its wing emerges.

Then suddenly, the baby is out and clinging to its mother.

The wings are protecting the baby,

so nobody can come close to the baby at all.

We catch a glimpse of the newborn pup's face

as its mother cleans it in her fingertips.

Look at that! Ooh! Baby was slipping away from the mother.

The baby must be very, very slippery

and it's slipping down away from the control of the mother,

so she catches it with the wing.

The mother quickly positions the baby on her teat

for its first feed of her milk.

That is amazing.

There's a few mothers. There's one, two, three, four.

But this is all babies.

Over the next few days, the colony swells

with thousands upon thousands of new babies.

This is the flagship colony that is helping me understand

what is the actual conservation status of that species.

If we multiply that one birth hundreds of thousands of times,

it tells me that the species has recovered.

Rodrigo could never have dreamed 20 years ago

that he'd be seeing such a recovery.

His tequila bats have come home to roost.

Our work as conservation professionals

is not to put as many species as we can

in endangered species lists.

Our work is to work as hard as we can

for as long as is needed -

as long as is needed only - to recover that species.

Finally, Rodrigo is ready to make an extraordinary announcement.

There's places where I have to be in big meetings.

You have to address the world.

Before that happens, I picture myself in a cave,

in the darkness, in the quiet,

in the peace of a cave.

Everything is great then.

At the Ministry of the Environment in Mexico City,

journalists and ministers pack the room to hear what he has to say.

APPLAUSE

HE SPEAKS SPANISH

Thanks to the work of Rodrigo, his team,

and hundreds of others across this country,

the lesser long-nosed bat is the first species in Mexico

to be officially saved from extinction,

and it will be removed from the endangered species list.

This is a clear indication

that our work is actually having a good impact in the world.

His method of combining research, law and community education

has meant every single bat colony has either stabilised or increased.

His techniques are now being applied with further success

to save endangered species of all kinds

across Latin America and the world.

Rodrigo really is the bat man.

This is a great day for the lesser long-nosed bat.

There's a lot of work to be done

but first, it's time to celebrate.