Friday, May 30, 2014

Arkansan Adventures

I am presently working as a bat survey research technician— I am part of a crew hired by a local university which was hired by the Forest Service to look for federally and locally endangered bats. The Forest Service, in order to comply with the Endangered Species Act, is obligated to (and probably wants to) find out whether there are any endangered species in a region before they do any controlled burns, logging, or other sorts of disruptions that could hurt any endangered populations.

That’s where we come in—as a crew of bat biologists and ecologists, we root around designated areas of the national forests to try to find the federally endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis). Because we are trying to find any M. sodalist that might be roosting in the area, we aren’t netting in a grid or other system with predetermined locations, as one might if looking for an unbiased sample of species in the area. Instead, we rely on our understanding of bat ecology, behavior, known populations, topography, and local weather conditions to get inside the bats’ heads and try to find sites where they will be. Bats love partly-covered “flyways” through the forest along trails or roads, and sometimes have to fly long distances to the nearest source of water to drink, for example.

Most of our surveys are two nights per site, so our work day can start as early as 3pm if we are out scouting for sites to set up, or as late as 7pm if we are continuing netting at a nearby site. We net for five hours after sunset, so we close our nets between 1 and 2am as the summer progresses. Quite a lifestyle shift from getting up at 5am to catch rodents in Chiapas!

Friday, May 16, 2014

Catching up

Hello readers! I have a bit of catching you up to do:

- After concluding our mammal / coffee work, we research techs traveled together to San Cristobal de Las Casas, a beautiful and cosmopolitan little hippy city in the mountains of the Sierra Madre. We hung around there for a week, bumming around youth hostels and seeing the sites with lots of new friends from around the world. Week done, my travel buddies flew out; I popped up to see the ruins of Palenque, down to see the regionally famous zoo in Tuxtla Guiterrez, back to San Cristobal, and then to the airport to fly home!

- I had almost four weeks to fit in some serious R&R, visits to friends and family, and then cleaning and packing up for my next adventure project! The weeks flew by, and as is usual for these short visits home, I was left in a hurry to see as many people as I could and to get everything on my to-do list done.

- I spent three days to drive the twenty-four hours from my family's home to the Arkansas Ozarks, a beautiful and hilly/mountainous region that greeted me with deluges of rain and a very chilly first night. I managed to set up my roomy living-out-of-my-car tent before sunset, had dinner with my colleagues who had arrived at the public campsite before I, and snuggled into my sleeping bag under several layers of clothing for a very, very early night.

More on what I'll be doing here in AR soon!