Here’s the poop: Farmer cashes in on bat waste

Thursday, July 06, 2006

 

AMESVILLE, Ohio (AP) — A local farmer has been blessed with more business lately — thanks to some bat poop, a vacuum and a little divine inspiration.

 

Matt Peters collects bat droppings, or guano, from the attics and bell towers of area churches and sells it as fertilizer. He manages to get $2 a pound for something people hate to scrape off their shoes...

 

http://dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/07/06/20060706-B3-02.html

Interestingly, up until the 1850's, any territories the US gained possession of (like, the western half of the country) were considered integral parts of the United States - inhabitants were citizens, the constitution applied, and they could eventually become states.  Every territory was an "incorporated territory" - there was no such thing as an "insular area."  It was guano that led to the concept and its first implementation of unincorporated territories (basic liberties apply, but the inhabitants aren't US citizens, it won't become a state, etc.).

 

Folks discovered that islands with big bat populations would have huge quantities of guano, which, as the article states, is an amazing fertilizer.  People started going out and scooping it up, and Congress passed the Guano Islands Act, which said uninhabited islands with guano could be claimed by US citizens, and the President could annex them as an unincorporated territory.

 

Eventually, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, all vacuumed up in the Spanish-American War, became unincorporated territories (though statuses have since changed), and we actually still own a number of little uninhabited islands in the Pacific...