The Mission Continues As BCI Builds on Merlin Tuttle's Success the Mission Continues As BCI Builds on Merlin Tuttle's Succes
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CONGRESS CONSIDERS BUILDING A FUTURE WHITE -NOSE SYNDROME FOR BORNEO ’S BATS WWW.BATCO N.ORG SUMMER 2009 BBBAT CONSAAERVATIOTNT INTERNASS TIONAL TThhee MMiissssiioonn CCoonnttiinnuueess aass BBCCII BBuuiillddss oonn MMeerrlliinn TTuuttttllee’’ss SSuucccceessss Volume 27, No. 2, summer 2009 P.O. Box 162603 , Austin, Texas 78716 BATS (512) 327-9721 • Fax (512) 327-9724 FEATURES Publications Staff Director of Publications: Robert Locke Photo Editor: Meera Banta 1 The Founder Passes the Baton Graphic Artist: Jason Huerta A lifetime of bats and science Copyeditors: Angela England, Valerie Locke BATS welcomes queries from writers. Send your article pro - by Robert Locke posal with a brief outline and a description of any photos to the address above or via e-mail to: [email protected] . Members: Please send changes of address and all cor res - 13 WNS Goes to Congress pondence to the address above or via e-mail to members@bat - con.org . Please include your label, if possible, and allow six Scientists urge immediate action to save North America’s bats weeks for the change of address. by Mylea Bayless Founder/President Emeritus: Dr. Merlin D. Tuttle Board of Trustees: John D. Mitchell, Chair 15 Building a Future for Borneo’s Bats Bert Grantges, Secretary Training and accessible resources prepare local researchers Marshall T. Steves, Jr., Treasurer by Matthew Struebig Jeff Acopian; Anne-Louise Band; Eugenio Clariond Reyes; Bettina Mathis; Thomas M. Read; Walter C. Sedgwick; Merlin D. Tuttle; Marc Weinberger. Advisory Trustees: Sharon R. Forsyth; Elizabeth Ames NEWS & NOTES Jones; Travis Mathis; Wilhelmina Robertson; William Scanlan, Jr. Verne R. Read, Chairman Emeritus 16 A long-range bat course Scientific Advisory Board: Dr. Leslie S. Hall, Dr. Greg Richards, Bruce Thomson, Colombia’s first bat conference Australia; Dr. Irina K. Rakhmatulina, Azerbaijan; Dr. Luis F. Aguirre, Bolivia ; Dr. Wilson Uieda, Brazil; Dr. BCI Member Snapshot M. Brock Fenton, Canada ; Dr. Jiri Gaisler, Czech The Wish List Republic; Dr. Uwe Schmidt, Germany; Dr. Ganapathy Marimuthu, Dr. Shahroukh Mistry, India; Dr. Arnulfo Moreno, Mexico; Ir. Herman Limpens, Netherlands; Dr. Armando Rodriguez-Duran, Puerto Rico; Dr. Ya-Fu Lee, Taiwan; Dr. Denny G. Constantine, Robert Currie, Dr. Theodore H. Fleming, Dr. Thomas H. Kunz, Dr. Gary F. McCracken, Dr. Don E. Wilson, United States; Dr. José R. Ochoa G., Venezuela. Membership Manager: Amy McCartney BATS (ISSN 1049-0043) is published quarterly by Bat Con ser vation International, Inc., a nonprofit corporation supported by tax-deductible contributions used for public education, research and conservation of bats and the ecosys - tems that depend on them. © Bat Conser vation International, 2009. All rights reserved. Bat Conservation International’s mission is to conserve the world’s bats and their ecosystems in order to ensure a healthy planet. A subscription to BATS is included with BCI membership: Senior, Student or Educator $30; Basic $35; Friends of BCI $45; Supporting $60; Contributing $100; Patron $250; COVER PHOTO: Merlin Tuttle, BCI’s Founder and leader for 27 years, expresses Sustaining $500; Founder’s Circle $1,000. Third-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Send address changes to Bat Conser - sheer joy at being surrounded by bats emerging from Bracken Cave in 1991 (see vation International, P.O. Box 162603, Austin, TX 78716. story on Page 1). © MERLIN D. TUTTLE, BCI / 8403101 THHEE OUNDER T FFOUNPPAASSDSSEESS ETTHHR EE BBAATTOONN 0 8 4 2 4 0 0 / i C B , e l Merlin Tuttle at T T u Pearson Cave, T . D Tennessee, in 2007. N i l r e m © erlin Tuttle, who founded Bat Conservation search for a new Executive Director has begun. BCI’s current MInternational in 1982 and spent the last 27 years Management Team, with the support of the Board of building it into the leading defender of bats worldwide, is Trustees, will oversee the organization in the interim. stepping back from his leadership role. Merlin resigned as This planned transition is part of BCI’s Strategic Planning President/Executive Director on May 31. He remains a val - Initiative, begun more than a year ago to develop a blueprint ued part of BCI, assuming the title President Emeritus and to help the organization build on its successes and move continuing on BCI’s Board of Trustees. vigorously into the future. Merlin, 68, began a one-year sab - Merlin and John Mitchell, Chair of the BCI Board of batical leave to pursue personal projects, including writing Trustees, jointly expressed their confidence that “this tran - his memoirs. He will also work on select projects with BCI, sition in leadership will go smoothly, and BCI can look for - including efforts to deal with the crisis triggered by White- ward to impressive achievements in the years ahead.” The nose Syndrome. Volume 27, No. 2 SUMMER 2009 1 BATS 4 0 1 4 7 7 8 IFETIME OF ATS AND CIENCE A L IFETIME OF BATS AND SCIENCE / A L B S i C B , e l T T u T . D N i l by Robert Locke r e m © erlin Tuttle’s fascination with bats – and with science – really took hold in 1959, when, as a teenager, he discovered a colony of gray myotis in Baloney Cave, a few miles from his Tennessee home. MScientific texts back then reported that gray myotis ( Myotis gris - escens ) remained in the same favored caves year-round. Merlin, as he would often do in later years, questioned the conventional wisdom. He studied the bats, explored the cave and even attached bat bands from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to hun - dreds of them. That winter, he found dozens of his banded bats in another cave 100 miles (160 kilometers) north. While still in high school, Merlin proved for the first time that gray myotis migrate between summer roosts and winter hibernation sites, some traveling north rather than south, as expected. That led to a lifetime of dedication to con - serving these wondrous and invaluable flying mammals. And it led to BCI. 1201 / 868 BCi le, “Merlin Tuttle has probably directly con - uTT D. T rliN tributed more than anyone else to the conserva - ©me tion of bats,” says Brock Fenton, Biology Chair at the University of Western Ontario. “Quite simply, Merlin ( top ) beams at Zuri, a straw-colored flying fox that he turned his fascination with them and his love of charmed audiences around America. And i n1963, Merlin them into a lifelong campaign to effect their con - (above) rests for a few precarious moments in Pearson servation at home and abroad. His name is, appro - Cave, Tennessee. BATS 2 SUMMER 2009 Volume 27, No. 2 priately, synonymous with bats.” Merlin’s gray myotis research continued for two decades and included his Ph.D. dissertation in population ecology at the University of Kansas. And along TRIBUTES the way, he made another discovery that charted the course of his life: gray myotis Merlin Tuttle has played a pivotal and historic colonies were being devastated by humans at a frightful rate. role in the conservation of bats. He has crafted a “You're too late,” old-timers often said when Merlin sought information on program that blends cutting-edge science, out - local bat caves. “When I was a child, clouds of bats filled the sky. You should have standing outreach, amazing photography and pro - been here back then. They're all gone now.” fessional advocacy to engage, inspire and motivate a The culprit, he found, was ignorance. Hardly anyone had any inkling of the global audience. For the past three decades, Merlin many ecological and economic benefits of bats. And most people, their attitudes has been at the forefront of every important con - shaped by myths, misinformation and baseless fears, despised bats as dangerous servation issue facing bats. The world is a better and sinister pests. place because of his work. Not only were countless bats of many species being lost to disappearing habi - John P. Hayes, Chair, Department of Wildlife tat, pesticide poisoning and similar dangers, but some cave owners and visitors Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida intentionally killed incredible numbers of bats, sometimes even igniting confla - grations that burned or suffocated all the bats inside. The story was much the Bats have had no greater ally than Merlin Tuttle. same almost everywhere Merlin went in North America and around the world. Through his science, supernatural charisma and Bats were feared, reviled and casually destroyed. passion, he has reversed the public opinion of bats Merlin Tuttle devoted his long and productive career not only to learning about around the world. I have known Merlin the major - bats, but to sharing the facts about these essential creatures around the world. ity of my life and have been lucky enough to travel “At a time when most bat species were considered to be ugly and vile, Merlin on many of his adventures. He has been a great singularly shaped public perceptions about bats,” says Thomas H. Kunz of the friend and mentor, and I look forward to our con - Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University. “Over the tinued relationship through BCI. years, he has passionately influenced a host of students and colleagues around the Bert Grantges world on the ecological values of bats.” BCI Board of Trustees “Merlin is a pioneer,” says John Mitchell, chairman of BCI’s Board of Trustees. I have long respected Merlin for his practical “When he started, most of the world was unaware of how important and how approach to wildlife conservation. Merlin’s ap - threatened bats are. He made the rest of us aware of their great value, and that had proach and style has always been one of education a multiplier effect as other conservation organizations signed on.” and not admonishment, of the careful choice of “Quite frankly,” Merlin wrote 17 years ago, “the founding of BCI came as an words and, most importantly, of leading by a posi - act of desperation.