During this time of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, medical science is seeking a vaccine as well as drugs that will treat the symptoms. In the meantime, much has been reported on the ventilator, a lifesaving device that is used on the most serious cases.

Although details differ according to where you are, it is often quieter these days due to stay-at-home restrictions on normally noisy human activities. Less loudness and more calmness—some of that can be good¹—yet ongoing economic shutdowns can cripple or crush curtailed livelihoods. So it’s calmer now, but not completely silent.

Bats have been in the news lately,¹ but bats themselves are not new—they were created on Day 5 of Creation Week, along with other flying creatures.

Bats are a large and fascinating group of flying mammals. They include over 1,400 species. Not surprisingly, the fossil record shows bats have always been bats. They suddenly appear in a most un-Darwinian manner.

The Delaware Bay beaches will soon host an annual (and enormous) get-together, unrestricted by any unusual “social distancing” guidelines. But local police will not issue punitive fines. Neither will distancing-enforcement drones monitor, hovering above, to broadcast admonitions unto the teeming crowds that accumulate on the beaches. Why not?

For many in America and around the world, these are very turbulent and troubled times. But for some, not so much. For example, consider the wild cervids like mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), one variety of which is popularly called black-tailed deer. Since they live in national forests and wildlife refuges, for them these times may be a bit of a relief.