Indiana myotis once were among the most abundant mammals in eastern North America, and the largest populations hibernated each winter in the caves of Kentucky. One such refuge is know today as Saltpetre Cave. About the time of the American Revolution, it likely housed 100,000 or more hibernating bats. By 1983, that number was 13. Although declared endangered in 1967, the species is still collapsing – just 380,000 survived in 2001....more

Not too many years ago, the discovery that a colony of bats was living under a city bridge was cause for near-panic and demands for extermination. Now, however, the bats are a cause of celebration. Besides their prodigious appetite for pesky insects, bats have become a tourist attraction. ...more

Bat conservation is taking hold in East Africa, and part of the reason is Robert M. Kityo, who, with the support of a Bat Conservation International scholarship, recently earned a Ph.D. in biology from Mekerere University in Uganda. The scholarship supported Kityo’s bat-diversity research in three Ugandan forest reserves and a national park, and it is leading to a host of important conservation spinoffs....more