First West Texas Bat Meeting of Fall 2012

We had our first meeting for the semester. We will be having them every 2nd week at 12.30 pm in Room 104 of the Biology building on TTU campus. They are open to anyone interested in West Texas Bats! Join us!

In attendance were Tigga Kingston, Sam Braudt, Julie Parlos, Marina Fisher-Phelps, Kaitlin Thogmartin, Maria Sagot, Joe Chun-Chia Huang and Mark McGinley.

We have decided to have a theme or agenda for each week, although it is fine to bring in current news or wander a bit off topic. Today Julie and Marina talked to us about their efforts to answer burning question: ARE THERE ANY BATS IN LUBBOCK??? They spent the summer designing, fine-tuning and implementing driving transects that monitor the presence of bats acoustically _ detecting bat calls– by driving slowly (about 20 mph) along a pre-defined routes with a bat detector (or the microphone) sticking out of the roof of the car. I will leave them to recount the details, but the answer is YES, there are bats here! Hurrah! Not in huge numbers mind, but calls were heard.

Next meeting Monday 1st October. Agenda –reaching out and engaging the public in bat research and conservation!