KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As night falls over a nature park on the edge of Kyiv, children crowd around volunteers who carefully open cloth bags and release bats into the twilight.
As each one takes flight, snapping through the air, more than 1,000 spectators cheer and applaud — families, off-duty soldiers, and bat enthusiasts, a few dressed in Goth outfits.
Hundreds of bats, many rescued from war-torn areas in the east of the country, were released late Saturday at one of multiple events around Ukraine planned to coincide with the arrival of spring.
“This is important for us as an organization because these are on a red list of endangered animals. Preserving them is very important,” said Anastasiia Vovk, a volunteer at the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center, which organized the release.
All 28 bat species in Ukraine are listed as protected animals due to declining populations.
For many attendees, the event offered welcome relief and an excuse for a family outing after a harsh winter marked by subzero temperatures, nightly Russian drone and missile attacks and crippling power cuts.
Late Saturday, children, many wearing bat-themed T-shirts and hats, watched as volunteers fed the animals mealworms with tweezers before letting them go. Some were allowed to wear gloves and handle the bats themselves.
“Life goes on despite the war,” said Oleksii Beliaiev, a 54-year-old Kyiv resident who attended with his family. “The war is the main thing right now, but there has to be something else as well.”
Beliaiev runs a small printing business and spends time volunteering for army projects.
The war has displaced animals as well as people. Buildings destroyed by shelling damage bats’ shelters, and explosions terrify the tiny mammals, experts say.
“In winter, bats hibernate, and if they are disturbed, they can die. They reproduce slowly — one or two offspring per year — so populations recover very slowly,” said Alona Shulenko, who headed Saturday’s release.
“As natural hibernation sites disappear, bats move into cities, into cracks in buildings and balconies. But repairs or destruction of these places can kill entire colonies,” she said.
All Ukrainian bat species are insect-eating and legally protected, while the country lies on an important east European migratory route.
The charity says it has rescued more than 30,000 in total, including 4,000 bats last winter.
“We are all living in wartime, and everyone has their own struggles,” Shulenko said. “But we are doing what we know best. … If we stop what we are doing, thousands of bats will die.”
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Associated Press writers Volodymyr Yurchuk and Dan Bashakov contributed to this report.