TITLE---[ Essential Help for Young Conservationists and Bats Around the Globe ]
AUTHOR---[ ]
SUBTITLE---[ ]
VOLUME---[ 18 ]
NUMBER---[ 4 ]
ISSUE---[ WINTER ]
YEAR---[ 2000 ]
START PAGE--[ 18 ]
END PAGE---[ 18 ]
AREA---[ ON THE BACK ]

Essential Help for Young Conservationists and Bats Around the Globe

Last year, BCI scholarships supported 24 students in 14 countries, enabling them to gain first-hand experience at critical turning points in their young careers. Current recipients are researching a wide variety of topics that are essential to conservation progress. These include bat

-control of crop pests that attack pears in California and corn and cotton in Texas;
-pollination of durian, banana and mangrove plants of Peninsular Malaysia;
-dispersal of rain forest seeds in Brazil and Madagascar;
-habitat requirements in managed forests from North America to Europe; and
-conservation benefits of gates that protect hibernation roosts in abandoned mines.

Since 1990 BCI has provided more than $230,000 in assistance to more than 100 students, fostering a new generation of conservation-minded scientists who are already making a real difference around the globe.

Nevertheless, lack of knowledge remains the number one obstacle to conservation progress, and lack of financial support remains the most serious obstacle to recruiting young conservationists. Each year, for lack of funds, we must reject nearly a third of our applicants. For information on how you or your company can help launch a young career, please contact:

Nicole Daspit, Development Associate
Bat Conservation International
P.O. Box 162603, Austin, TX 78716
512-327-9721
development@batcon.org

2000 Oracle Bat Research Scholars
BCI is proud to announce that the work of Jennifer Baldacci, Brazil; Lucia Bobakova, Slovak Republic; Anja Brunet, Mexico; Sharyn Garner, New Zealand; Olga Goretovskaya, Western Siberia, Russia; Willem Hechter, South Africa; Nancy Irwin, Papua New Guinea; Lain Mackie, United Kingdom and Jacques Veilleux, Indiana, is being underwritten by a generous grant from Oracle Corporation.

Sharon Balding (pictured) assisted scholarship recipient Robert Hodgkison with his study of Peninsular Malaysia’s spotted-winged fruit bat (Balionycteris macula). Hodgkison’s investigation of seed dispersal, pollination and roosting behavior are being used to establish conversation priorities for this species.

cov18n4.jpg

Photo of Cover

© Bat Conservation International, Inc., 2001. Absolutely no rights of distribution by sale or other transfer of ownership or by rental, lease or lending, preparation of derivitive works, or reproduction, in whole or in part, is granted. No text, graphics or photos may be downloaded and used on another Internet site, without express permission of BCI. For information on obtaining photo useage and rights, please contact our Visual Resources Dept. BCI reserves the rights to actively protect against infringement.