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The Selman
Bat Cave Wildlife
Management Area is a tract of 340 acres near Woodward that
contains one of the state’s largest maternity colonies of
Mexican free-tailed bats. This bat is the official state of
Oklahoma flying mammal.
The bats migrate to Oklahoma each summer. The Wildlife
Department protects the bat colony and offers summer
viewings of the bats through the Selman Bat Watch.
In addition to wowing Bat Watch visitors with their
impressive evening flights, the bats provide a huge economic
benefit to local farmers and ranchers. The bats eat an
estimated 22,000 pounds of mosquitoes, moths and beetles
each night they're in Oklahoma!
The Selman Bat Cave was purchased with funds donated to the
Wildlife Diversity Program and from the sale of hunting and
fishing licenses. The area is closed to the public except
during specific Bat Watch evenings, when a Wildlife
Department biologist escorts people on and off the property.
ABOUT THE NATURAL AREA
The area is comprised of a mixed-grass gypsum prairie that
is home to many other wildlife species.
Some of them include the great-crested flycatcher, western meadowlark, porcupine, dickcissel, common nighthawk,
rock wren, glass lizard, Chuck-wills-widow, Swainson’s hawk, turkey vulture, the rare Texas horned lizard, and rufous-crowned, lark and grasshopper sparrows.
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Attend a Bat Watch
The area is an intriguing landscape of sandsage prairie, spring-fed creeks and gypsum bluffs.
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