Interactions With Humans
H. monstrosus has no special conservation status. In 2004, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species listed this species as LC (least concern) on the basis of its widespread distribution and lack of threats to its habitat.
Due to this bat’s diet of fruit, it may be considered a crop pest. It has also been observed to attack live chickens. This observation was reported once and cannot be considered a regular occurrence. Humans hunt this large bat and consume it as bushmeat.
The hammer-headed bat is one of three species of African fruit bat claimed to be asymptomatically infected with the Ebola virus. It is not known whether these species are incidental hosts or a reservoir of Ebolavirus infection for humans and other terrestrial mammals.
Read more about this topic: Hammer-headed Bat
Famous quotes containing the words interactions with, interactions and/or humans:
“Whereas children can learn from their interactions with their parents how to get along in one sort of social hierarchy—that of the family—it is from their interactions with peers that they can best learn how to survive among equals in a wide range of social situations.”
—Zick Rubin (20th century)
“The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“...there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant. But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 14:7-10.