TITLE---[ Bat Conservation International Highlights ]
AUTHOR---[ ]
SUBTITLE---[ A brief review of some of BCI's accomplishments in the last year... ]
VOLUME---[ 21 ]
NUMBER---[ 2 ]
ISSUE---[ SUMMER ]
YEAR---[ 2003 ]
START PAGE--[ 14 ]
END PAGE---[ 15 ]
AREA---[ ARTICLE ]

A brief review of some of BCI's accomplishments in the last year...

Bat Conservation International, despite shrinking revenue in the face of a harsh national economy, achieved major successes this past year. That's mostly due to the special generosity of many BCI members, to a committed staff and dedicated volunteers, and to the partnerships and alliances we have built over two decades of bat conservation. Here is but a small sampling of BCI's recent achievements. We need your support now more than ever to maintain these and other important programs in the year ahead.

Conservation Grants

Paul Cryan used a BCI Student Research Scholarship grant to study migratory patterns of tree-roosting bats in North America. This is a hoary bat.

BCI support allowed the Romanian Eco Studia Society to conduct workshops on monitoring and protecting cave-dwelling bats in Romania.

- Robert Kityo, a graduate student at Uganda's Makerere University, learned new bat-monitoring techniques by attending a workshop in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with the co-sponsorship of BCI.

- BCI co-sponsored a Conservation Assessment and Management Workshop for South Asian Chiroptera at Madurai Kamaraj University in India. The workshop helped win first-ever protected status for two Indian bat species.

Caves and Mines

One of Nevada's most significant maternity colonies of pallid bats is now protected, thanks to the installation of a bat-friendly gate across the entrance to Murphy Mine. Gating the abandoned mine was accomplished by BCI and partners from the Nevada Division of Wildlife and Florida Canyon Mining Company.

A gate at the Lucky Jim Mine in California's Old Woman Mountains Wilderness Area now protects a maternity colony of fringed myotis and a winter colony of California leaf-nosed bats. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the California Department of Conservation partnered with BCI.

- An Austin, Texas, symposium on cave and mine protection strategies, co-sponsored by BCI, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Office of Surface Mining, drew about 200 people ranging from cavers and contractors to biologists and government officials.

- BCI, The Nature Conservancy, and the Southeastern Cave Conservancy protected Tennessee's Wolf River Cave, home to about 2,550 endangered Indiana bats and a smaller number of endangered gray myotis.

Teaching

Night-vision scopes and bat detectors helped give about 100 adults and children an in-depth education about bats in forests during BCI's Bat Education Nights in three Minnesota parks.

- BCI produced the latest in its popular series of bilingual children's books about bats: Semillas de Barbarita, la Murciélaga — Seeds from Little Barbara, the Bat, which explores the ecological values of fruit-eating and seed-dispersing bats.

- Talking Talons, a New Mexico-based environmental education program, is adding BCI materials to its educational packages, which reach 10,000 students a year.

- BCI Founder Merlin Tuttle presented a bat-conservation lecture to an audience of 3,000 at the prestigious Chautauqua Institution in New York.

Bat Houses

BCI's North American Bat House Research Project, with about 1,200 volunteer Research Associates, is monitoring the success of bat houses in 33 U.S. states, three Canadian provinces, and the Cayman Islands.

- A study into the insect-control value of bats on organic farms continues in California's Central Valley, where 45 bat houses have now been installed on 10 organic farms.

- Rafinesque's big-eared bats that have lost their traditional homes in huge tree hollows are now being provided with an alternative. Thanks to early support from Walter Sedgwick, BCI and its partners are achieving promising success in early experiments with vertically stacked concrete culverts that mimic hollow trees.

Workshops

A Kentucky workshop on Bat Conservation and Forest Management, co-sponsored by BCI, introduced foresters from state and federal agencies, industry, and other organizations to the latest information on how best to incorporate bats (like this red bat mother and pups) into forest management.

Leaders of BCI's U.S.-Mexico Program for the Conservation of Migratory Bats described their work at the first bat workshop in Guatemala, where initial plans were developed to create a similar organization devoted to bats.

- Texas Department of Transportation representatives were among those who learned about artificial roosts at an Introductory Bat Workshop, co-hosted by BCI, in Terlingua, Texas. Now they're planning a bat abode at the Terlingua Creek Bridge.

SCIENCE

Rodrigo Medellin surveys lesser long-nosed bats at an Arizona cave as part of collaborative efforts, including those of BCI, to save this endangered species. Preliminary survey results from Arizona and northern Mexico now find populations stable or increasing slightly.

Foresters of Payette National Forest in Idaho are partnering with BCI to develop a survey, research, and management plan for bats and mines. This comprehensive approach to the problem is seen as a model for other national forests.

- BCI partners are surveying bats in the Repechon Caves of Bolivia's Carrasco National Park to determine bat species and population sizes, with educational programs planned for area schools.

The U.S. Postal Service, thanks largely to informal lobbying by BCI member Carol Adams of Texas, issued its first-ever stamps to feature bats. Photos on the four stamps were by BCI Founder Merlin Tuttle. The stamps were launched at a ceremony in Austin last September, and BCI used the festivities to deliver a bit of bat education to some 1,500 people.

Photo of Cover