Bats and Nature

Experience bats and nature as few people have during Bat Conservation International's Field Study Workshops. These unique adventures put you right in the middle of this fascinating world of bats, bat conservation, and bat research.

There is still time to sign up for this year's five-day field workshops You'll be amazed at how much you'll learn - and how much fun you'll have doing it.

More than 1,000 land managers, biologists, educators, animal-control personnel, and enthusiastic laymen have participated in past workshops. Learn species identification, netting, radio-tracking, night-vision observation, and habitat assessment, while working in extraordinary settings.

Our Pennsylvania workshop highlights eastern bats and their habitats. We will net, trap, and release bats over trout streams and beaver ponds, observe thousands of endangered Indiana bats swarming at a mine entrance, watch 20,000 little brown bats in a spectacular dawn return to their roost at a restored church, and then examine them up close.

Workshop co-leader, Cal Butchkoski of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, is a leading expert on surveying and radio-tracking Indiana bats, as well as one of America's most successful builders of bat houses and other artificial roosts. He and BCI expert Janet Tyburec will share a wealth of knowledge covering all aspects of bat conservation, management, education, public health and nuisance issues. Home cooking is but one of many unexpected treats at historic Greene Hills Lodge, our workshop headquarters. August 19-24.

Our Arizona workshop in the Chiricahua Mountains emphasizes western bats. The Chiricahuas, where tropical, temperate, desert, and mountain biotas meet, offer a biodiversity unequalled anywhere else in North America. Expect not only to see, but to capture and handle as many as 18 bat species in a single evening, then watch endangered long-nosed bats visit hummingbird feeders at your front door. Participants have also enjoyed spotting ring-tailed cats, coatis, and trogans.

The cost for each workshop is $1,195 and includes materials, meals, lodging, and local transportation. Visit our Web site at for details, itineraries, and to download an application for any of these workshops. Or contact Andy Moore.

BCI expert Janet Tyburec and her well-trained crew will share a wealth of knowledge on species identification (including by echolocation calls), bat conservation, management, education, public health and nuisance issues, artificial habitats, and much more. We will stay at the American Museum of Natural History's famous Southwestern Research Station , where you will enjoy superb dining with researchers from around the world. Two sessions: May 22-27 and May 27-June 1.

For a taste of what a BCI field workshop is all about, take a look at "Notes from the Field" An exciting neotropical bat workshop in Belize is also offered beginning July 20, 2003. Eight days and seven nights for $1,995.

Go to BCI Website