Science Diary: Bat Count Transmitters
Music; Ambiance: Collecting data on the bats, preparing to glue; bat squeaks
“Yeah, hold them like this two fingers.”
Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside. Al Hicks is a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. He’s gathered a team of researchers and volunteers to conduct a count of the Indiana Bat population near Syracuse, NY. In this recording, made a year ago, they are collecting bats and affixing radio transmitters to them. These are used to track the bats from the cave where they hibernate, to their summer range.
“We’re looking for a representative sample of animals throughout the cave. Because what we want is in these 24 animals, we want a sense of where the entire population is going. The largest typically is what we go for. Then we trimmed the fur, because you want to attach the transmitter directly to the skin. It’s a surgical adhesive that we use and it will last about 20 days on a bat, and about 20 days is when the transmitters will die. So about the same time the transmitters are dead, they fall off. So, we glue that on their back and had our veterinarian check each animal and give it food and water and things of that sort.”
After the bats are released, the radio transmitters are used to find them, leading Al Hicks’ team to their summer roost. Since these recordings were made, a mysterious illness has caused the die-off of thousands of bats in New York and Vermont. Researchers now fear that bats afflicted with the unknown disease, characterized by white fungus growth on the bat’s face, may be spreading it to other colonies over the summer months. All the more reason to monitor the bats carefully.
For updates on this story, please visit pulseplanet.com.
Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries is made possible by the National Science Foundation.