BATS OF THE READING THE MENU WITH MONGOLIAN STEPPES BCI’S NEW LEADER DNA BARCODES WWW.BATCO N.ORG WINTER 2009 BATSBATSBAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL Volume 27, No. 4, WINTER 2009 P.O. Box 162603, Austin, Texas 78716 BATS (512) 327-9721 • Fax (512) 327-9724 FEATURES Publications Staff Director of Publications: Robert Locke BCI’s New Leader Photo Editor: Meera Banta 1 Graphic Artist: Jason Huerta Copyeditors: Angela England, Valerie Locke BATS welcomes queries from writers. Send your article proposal 2 Armed Rangers and Harsh Lands with a brief outline and a description of any photos to the ad- Conserving abandoned mines for endangered desert bats dress above or via e-mail to: [email protected]. Members: Please send changes of address and all cor res- by Jim Kennedy pondence to the address above or via e-mail to members@bat- con.org. Please include your label, if possible, and allow six weeks for the change of address. 6 Food Forensics Founder/President Emeritus: Dr. Merlin D. Tuttle New technology uses DNA to reveal what’s on the menu for bats Board of Trustees: John D. Mitchell, Chair by Robin Floyd and Elizabeth Clare Bert Grantges, Secretary Marshall T. Steves, Jr., Treasurer Anne-Louise Band; Eugenio Clariond Reyes; Bettina 9 Steppe Bats of Mongolia Mathis; Sandy Read; Walter C. Sedgwick; Marc Wein- A ‘Grassroots’ study of diversity in arid plains berger. Advisory Trustees: Sharon R. Forsyth; Elizabeth Ames by Nyambayar Batbayar, Ariunbold Jargalsaikhan Jones; Travis Mathis; Wilhelmina Robertson; William Scanlan, Jr.; Merlin D. Tuttle. & Sukhchuluun Gansukh Verne R. Read, Chairman Emeritus Scientific Advisory Board: Dr. Leslie S. Hall, Dr. Greg Richards, Bruce Thomson, 12 Chasing Migratory Tree Bats Australia; Dr. Irina K. Rakhmatulina, Azerbaijan; Dr. Luis F. Aguirre, Bolivia; Dr. Wilson Uieda, Brazil; Dr. M. Scientists aim an aerial spotlight on tree bats Brock Fenton, Canada; Dr. Jiri Gaisler, Czech Republic; Dr. Uwe Schmidt, Germany; Dr. Ganapathy Marimuthu, by Julie Zeyzus Dr. Shahroukh Mistry, India; Dr. Arnulfo Moreno, Mex- ico; Ir. Herman Limpens, Netherlands; Dr. Armando Ro- driguez-Duran, Puerto Rico; Dr. Ya-Fu Lee, Taiwan; Dr. NEWS & NOTES 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. Founder’s Circle Ecotour 14 Membership Manager: Amy McCartney WNS Briefing BATS (ISSN 1049-0043) is published quarterly by Bat Con ser vation International, Inc., a nonprofit corporation The Passing of Friends: Andy Linehan supported by tax-deductible contributions used for public ed- ucation, research and conservation of bats and the ecosystems Take to the Field at a BCI Workshop that depend on them. An Endangered Candidate © Bat Conser vation International, 2009. All rights reserved. Bat Conservation International’s mission is to conserve the BCI Member Snapshot world’s bats and their ecosystems in order to ensure a healthy planet. The Wish List 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; Sus- taining $500; Founder’s Circle $1,000. Third-class postage paid COVER PHOTO: Endangered lesser long-nosed bats, such as this one approach- at Austin, Texas. Send address changes to Bat Conser vation In- ing a saguaro cactus, are important desert pollinators. But conserving them raises ternational, P.O. Box 162603, Austin, TX 78716. unusual challenges. (Story on Page 2.) © MERLIN D. TUTTLE, BCI / 8134506 BCI’S NEW LEADER at Conservation International has a new admirably as Acting Executive Director leader. Nina Fascione, Vice President for while still working as BCI’s Co-director of Field Conservation Programs at Defenders programs. Dave’s leadership was invalu- of Wildlife in Washington, D.C., and a able during this period.” Bconservation professional for 24 years, be- “I know I speak for the Management comes Executive Director of BCI on March Team and all of BCI in expressing our 1. She succeeds Merlin Tuttle, who founded pleasure at the Board’s selection of Nina BCI in 1982 and built it into the world’s as our Executive Director,” Waldien said. foremost organization for bat conservation “Nina brings new skills and ideas to lead before stepping down last May 31. us into the future while recognizing and “I have known and admired Merlin for valuing the many past accomplishments of many years, and I am thrilled at this op- BCI under Merlin’s founding guidance. portunity to help protect his legacy and We are confident in Nina’s leadership and build on it as Bat Conservation Interna- totally committed to making the next 27 tional expands into the future,” Nina said. years even more successful than the first!” “Merlin cultivated public support for BCI KRISTA SCHLYER, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE Nina brings a rich range of wildlife ex- and for bat conservation by correcting © perience to BCI. Internationally, she was an myths about bats and explaining their many benefits to ecosys- adviser to such initiatives as a lion project in northern Kenya, a tems and economies. I will continue those efforts as we grow koala-conservation summit in Australia and zoo-research training our membership, build enthusiasm among our supporters, and in Taiwan. She co-founded the Emerging Wildlife Conservation create solid partnerships and collaborations to enhance BCI’s Leaders program, which provides two years of intensive training mission around the world.” for young professionals in wildlife management and conserva- “Stepping back from BCI after all these years has been dif- tion. She also worked with a coalition of groups to draft and seek ficult,” Merlin said, “but Nina Fascione is an excellent choice congressional support for the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act to to lead the organization into the future and I look forward to fund the conservation of 15 imperiled species. working with her. I wish only the best for Nina and for BCI in And, Nina notes, “I have nearly 25 years of experience in the years to come.” bat conservation and education.” She was co-chair of the Amer- Nina, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied ican Zoo and Aquarium’s Bat Taxon Advisory Group in 1991- anthropology from the University of Maryland, joined Defend- 97, coordinating strategic planning and implementation of ers of Wildlife as a program associate in 1995 and rose quickly conservation and breeding programs for threatened bats. In that to leadership positions. In her current position, she manages the role, she wrote an article, “The Evolving Role of American Zoos largest division at the nonprofit – the fifth-largest environmental in Bat Conservation,” that appeared in the Spring 1996 issue organization in the United States, with more than 500,000 of BATS magazine. (You can read Nina’s article at members nationwide. She oversees 30 staffers at nine regional www.batcon.org/nina.) offices committed to innovative approaches to endangered- She has worked in various aspects of bat-conservation edu- species and habitat conservation. cation and outreach and participated in a weeklong field-train- “We are very excited about Nina’s enthusiasm and her vast ing workshop conducted by bat biologist Brock Fenton in experience in the conservation of mammals and especially her in- Canada. Nina currently leads Defenders of Wildlife’s work on terest in bats during her many years of service with Defenders of White-nose Syndrome. Wildlife,” said John Mitchell, Chair of BCI’s Board of Trustees. Bat Conservation International is moving into the future “Nina was unanimously selected by the Trustees after a six-month with confidence and enthusiasm as Nina Fascione takes the search that considered a number of exceptional candidates. We helm. With the continued support of our members, friends and are convinced by her track record that she will lead BCI to new partners, we will continue to make a real difference for bat con- achievements and even greater stature in the years ahead.” servation around the world. Mitchell also praised BCI’s Management Team for leading BCI through this difficult transition, “and especially the per- Meet Nina Fascione at our Founder’s Circle Ecotour to Trinidad. formance and tireless dedication of Dave Waldien, who served See page 14. FOUR NEW MEMBERS are joining the nine current members of BCI’s Board of Trustees, Board Chair John Mitchell announced. They are: Dr. John Hayes, Department Chair and Professor of the Our New Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida, Gainesville; C. Andrew Marcus of John Bowles Company, Dallas, Texas; Dr. Gary F. McCracken, Head of the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Trustees Steven P. Quarles, partner, Crowell & Moring law firm, Washington, D.C. Volume 27, No. 4 W I N T E R 2009 1 B AT S AARMEDRMED RRANGERSANGERS ANDAND HARSHARSH LANDSANDS JIM KENNEDY, BCI / 0046583 H L © ConservingConserving abandonedabandoned minesmines forfor endangeredendangered desertdesert batsbats by Jim Kennedy old up!” said the man with the gun. The hikers – five biologists and archaeologists – obeyed immediately: we stopped in our tracks and fell silent. Two guards moved cautiously across the thorny scrubland, AR-15 rifles at the ready. “HThese elite National Park Service rangers had joined our hike to keep us out of trouble as we approached the aban- doned mines of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. Armed guards are a thankfully rare aspect of bat research in most places, but they reflect the special challenges of working along this isolated stretch of U.S.-Mexico borderlands. MERLIN D. TUTTLE, BCI / 8184101 The monument sprawls across 314,000 acres (127,000 © hectares) of arid Sonoran Desert, one of the most impressive and sensitive ecosystems in the United States, and 95 percent of it is designated a wilderness area.