BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL ISSUE 2 • 2016 BATCON.ORG Zoos’ new efforts put boots on the ground to help preserve and protect bats outside their gates BEYONDTHEMENAGERIE SPECIES SPOTLIGHT: WNS RESEARCH BCI WELCOMES THE RODRIGUES FRUIT BAT UPDATE DR. FRICK BECOME a MONTHLY SUSTAINING MEMBER When you set up monthly donations, you allow us to plan our conservation and education programs with confidence, knowing the resources you and other sustaining members provide will be there. Being a Sustaining Member is also convenient for you—your monthly gift is automatically transferred from your debit or credit card or bank account and can be changed or cancelled at any time. It’s safe and secure, and you’re in complete control. You also won’t receive annual membership renewal requests, which help us cut back on paper and postage costs. 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ISSUE 2 • 2016 bats INSIDE THIS ISSUE FEATURES 08 BEYOND THE MENAGERIE Zoos’ new efforts preserve and protect bats outside their gates Photo: Frank Ridgley OFF THE BAT BAT CHATS BCI Executive Director Andrew First-ever Verne and Marion Read Bat 02 Walker discusses White-nose 16 Conservation Scholarship awarded Syndrome’s jump to the West Coast SPECIES SPOTLIGHT BAT KIDS Local and international partners Ryukyu the flying fox has stumbled work together to save the across a word search while rummaging 06 Gettle/MindenPhoto: Steve Pictures 21 Rodrigues fruit bat through the tropical forests of Japan WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME MAKING A DIFFERENCE Memoirs from Recognizing the many generous the front line friends and members who have 14 [PAGE 6] 22 recently supported BCI NEWS & UPDATES BAT SIGNALS FIELD NOTES BCI news and Research news from 03 conservation updates 17 around the globe � Dr. Winifred Frick joins BCI � Environmentalists sue feds as Senior Director of for failing to protect bats Conservation Science � Bat conservationists succeed � Surveillance team in Texas in setting aside 1,300 uncovers a rare find hectares for endangered ON THE COVER Large Flying Fox � Farewell to BCI Executive Director species (Pteropus vampyrus) [PAGE 4] Andrew Walker Photo: Ch’ien Lee/Minden Photo: Katie Gillies Katie Photo: Pictures batcon.org bats { 01 batoff the A FEW WORDS OF INTRODUCTION FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT BCI Bat Conservation International (BCI) is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to protecting bats and their WNS jumps the gap essential habitats around the world. A copy of our current financial statement and registration filed by By ANDREW WALKER the organization may be obtained by contacting our office in Austin, below, or by visiting batcon.org. his essay was originally to Unlike many eastern bats, in the Main Office Washington DC have been on the impor- Western United States bats hibernate 500 North Capital of 4600 North Fairfax Drive tance of zoos to the future of dispersed in low numbers in cliffs Texas Highway, Building 1 7th floor T Austin, TX 78746 Arlington, VA 22203 endangered bats. Zoos have been and crevices, which makes finding 512-327-9721 703-962-6775 with us for at least 5,500 years, and and treating the hibernacula this bat the menageries of exotic animals came from an all but impossible job. Editor Emeritus Managing Editor created by pharaohs, emperors and Survey teams are nonetheless being Robert Locke Micaela Jemison kings were monuments to royal assembled. BCI’s extensive experience Publication Management GLC power. The modern zoo began in with western caves and mines—and the late 18th and early 19th centu- our WNS program Bats welcomes queries from writers. Send your article ries as a means of educating and director, Katie Gillies’ proposal in a brief outline form and a description of any photos, charts or other graphics to the Editor at entertaining the citizenry—but also 15 years of experi- TALK TO US [email protected]. as a display of national power. In ence studying bats Share your thoughts Members: We welcome your feedback. Please send the last 30 years, zoos have evolved in the West—will and feedback with letters to the Editor at [email protected]. Changes further to become important centers help these teams Bats magazine at [email protected]. of address may be sent to [email protected] of conservation as highlighted in locate and prioritize or to BCI at our Austin, Texas, address above. Please allow this issue of Bats. the most important four weeks for the change of address to take effect. But I must turn to distressing hibernacula for From time to time, BCI exchanges mailing lists with news regarding White-nose Syn- monitoring and, we hope, eventual other like-minded conservation groups to make more drome (WNS), the non-native, treatment to control the fungus. people aware of the importance of bats. If you wish to opt-out of these exchanges, please let us know at fungus-caused disease that has The scientific, cave tourism and [email protected]. killed millions of bats across East- caving communities must redouble Founder: Dr. Merlin D. Tuttle ern North America. It appeared for a their commitment to decontamina- while that the spread of WNS across tion, especially in western states, to Board of Directors the country would be slowed as the prevent additional geographic jumps. Dr. Cullen Geiselman Dr. Charles C. Chester Chair Bettina Mathis disease approached the Great Plains, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Steven P. Quarles, Dr. Gary McCracken given the small number of caves and must move quickly to complete their Vice Chair John D. Mitchell mines that bridge the eastern and internal review for listing the little Danielle Gustafson, Alexander “Sandy” Read western halves of the country. BCI brown bat under the Endangered Treasurer Dr. Wes Sechrest has been working on strategies to Species Act—and act with more C. Andrew Marcus, Susan Wallace Secretary Joe Walston fight the fungus if it showed up in courage after the Service’s dreadful Plains caves, using a combination of decision on the northern long-eared Science Advisory Committee Dr. Kate Jones Dr. Rodrigo Medellín experimental treatments. bat (see page 17). And we must accel- Dr. Tigga Kingston Dr. Paul Racey But WNS has jumped the gap with erate research and testing of existing Dr. Gary McCracken, Dr. Charles Rupprecht a vengeance. Hikers 30 miles east of and new experimental treatments for Board liaison Seattle found in March a sick female the disease. Senior Staff little brown bat and brought it to a Zoos have not yet learned how to Andrew Walker, Winifred Frick, wildlife rehabilitation center, where it breed insectivorous bats in captivity, Executive Director Conservation Science died shortly thereafter. The National which may need larger spaces to fly David Waldien, Dan Sannes, Operations Wildlife Health Center confirmed than most fruit bats in captivity. But Global Conservation Mylea Bayless, Micaela Jemison, U.S./Canada it to have full-blown WNS. Further this terrible news on White-nose Communications Conservation testing revealed it was a local bat, Syndrome is one more reason for not an eastern transplant. This jump all of us to begin learning how. Visit BCI’s website at batcon.org and the following of nearly 1,300 miles suggests an social media sites: unsuspecting individual unwittingly Andrew Walker Facebook.com/batcon Twitter.com/BatConIntl carried the fungus west. BCI Executive Director 02 }bats Issue 2 2016 LEADERSHIP bat BCI welcomes BCI UPDATES AND Dr. Winifred Frick CONSERVATION NEWS We are pleased to welcome Winifred Frick, Ph.D., to the BCI team as our new Senior Director of Conservation Science. Frick will oversee the organization’s conservation-related science programs and will help advance BCI’s relationships with its research partners. “I am delighted to join BCI, an organization that aims to combine scientific analysis with Dr. Frick has studied on-the-ground conservation actions,” said Frick. “ I am the seasonal and excited to join the conservation team at BCI to help population ecology of protect the world’s many bat species.” the lesser long-nosed Frick, who earned a Ph.D. at Oregon State bat (Leptonycteris University, is internationally renowned for yerbabuenae) on the Baja peninsula in her research on the disease ecology and northwestern Mexico. impacts of White-nose Syndrome, a Here Dr. Frick removes fungal disease that has killed over six a pallid bat (Antrozous million bats in North America. She pallidus) from a mist net. joins BCI from her previous role as an adjunct assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biol- ogy at University of California, Santa Cruz. She also worked extensively in northwestern Mexico on the seasonal ecol- ogy and foraging behavior of nectar-feeding bats. MEET DR. FRICK Read an interview with Dr. Frick at batcon.org/ winifredfrick. Photo: Winifred Frick batcon.org bats { 03 bat Albinism is a hereditary condition characterized by the absence of melanin, which results in white hair and pink eyes in mammals. RESEARCH MISSION AWNS whitesurveillance surveys silver reveal a rare lining find Evans Jonah Photo: oday, researchers from Texas are on a mission to tackle one of the greatest threats posed to bats in North Amer- Tica: White-nose Syndrome (WNS). Since its discovery in the early 2000s, the fungal disease has killed more than six million bats—and that’s only an estimate.