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USGS2004

Chemistry & migration mysteries: Fur holds clues to previous journeys

The bat was not only pregnant but downright angry as I snipped a bit of fur from her back. Within a few seconds, however, she flapped her powerful wings, took off from my hand and disappeared into the night, rejoining thousands of female hoary bats ( Lasiurus cinereus ) on their migration through the mountains of New Mexico. Every spring, hundreds of these expectant mothers pass through this small stream drainage on their way to birthing grounds farther east. Their annual passage was first reported here more than 30 years ago, and it is still one of the few known migration corridors in the area. My task that night was simple: catch hoary bats and snip tiny samples of fur from their thick coats, then let them continue on their way. The explanation, however, is a bit more complicated.

BATS Magazine↗

USGS1991

Bats, cyanide, and gold mining

Although the boom days of prospectors and gold nuggets are long gone, modern technology enables gold to continue to be extracted from ore. Unfortunately, the extraction method has often been disastrous for bats and other wildlife, an issue I first became aware of in early 1989. Phone calls from Drs. Merlin Tuttle and Elizabeth Pierson, a BCI member and bat researcher from Berkeley, California, alerted me that bats were dying from apparent cyanide poisoning at gold mines in the western United States.

BATS Magazine↗

USGS2010

Ope`ape`a: Solving the puzzles of Hawaii's only bat

The Hawaiian hoary bat is described as the only land mammal native to Hawaii. In fact, this bat ( Lasiurus cinereus semotus ) arrived on the islands some 10,000 years ago – in what must qualify as one of the most spectacular immigrations in the history of mammals. The Hawaiian islands, after all, are 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers) from the nearest landfall on the North American continent, and the distance to Australia, New Guinea or Asia is even farther.

Hawai'i↗

USGS2012

Bats, mines, and citizen science in the Rockies: Volunteers make a difference in Colorado

Biologists at the Colorado Division of Wildlife faced a big problem back in 1990. They wanted to protect important bat roosts in the state’s abandoned mines, but first they had to find the bats. Colorado’s rich mining history had left more than 23,000 old mines scattered across the landscape, few of which had ever been surveyed for bat roosts. The magnitude of the task was overwhelming. So the agency put out a call for volunteers, “citizen scientists” willing to donate their time for bat conservation. Two decades later, the results have surpassed their wildest expectations.

BATS Magazine↗

USGS2014

Watching the dark: New surveillance cameras are changing bat research

It is, according to an old proverb, “better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” And those of us trying to discover new insights into the mysterious lives of bats often do a lot of cursing in the darkness. Bats do most things under cover of night, and often in places where humans and most other animals can’t go. This dark inaccessibility is great for bats, but not so great for those of us trying to study them. Successful conservation hinges on understanding bat behaviors and needs, as well as identifying and addressing the things that threaten them in the darkness. But how do we light a candle without scaring the bats away or altering their behavior?

BATS Magazine↗

USGS2004

Bat strike!

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Flying Safety Magazine↗

USGS2011

Bat white-nose syndrome in North America

* The newly described fungus, Geomyces destructans, causes an invasive skin infection in bats and is the likely agent of white-nose syndrome (WNS). * With immune system functions and body temperatures reduced during hibernation, bats may be unusually susceptible to a pathogenic fungus such as G. destructans. * WNS was first observed in a popular show cave near Albany, New York, leading some investigators to suspect that a visitor inadvertently introduced G. destructans at this site, triggering a wider WNS outbreak in North America. * Biologists trying to manage WNS within North American bat populations face major challenges, including the variety of susceptible host species, incredible dispersal capabilities of bats, difficulties in treating such populations, and persistence of the pathogen in their vulnerable underground habitats.

Microbe Magazine↗