This year the Manx Bat Group is launching Bat Search – a special project to mark 2012 as International Year of the Bat, and anyone over 16 can get involved to help conserve the Island’s bats.
Bat Search will recruit and train a group of volunteers from among residents Island-wide to go out during the spring and summer months this year to watch and listen for bat activity. Volunteers will be encouraged to monitor their own locality, enabling them, and the Bat Group, to get to know more about neighbourhood bats on the Island.
Chairman of the Manx Bat Group, Bob Moon, said: “The Bat Group has achieved an enviable reputation for involving the public in bat conservation and our public bat walks are very popular in the summer months. We want to take this a stage further and are asking the public to assist us in finding out more about where our bats live and feed. This information is of crucial importance in helping to protect our local bats. Bat Search is a great opportunity to be part of a hands-on wildlife project. All that is needed is enthusiasm and a little time; the Manx Bat Group will supply everything else.”
Volunteers will sign up for one or more training evenings in different locations around the Island to learn how to use a bat detector and how to complete the Bat Search recording sheets. They will receive a ‘goody bag’ containing all the equipment needed to carry out the surveys, including a bat detector on loan. The surveys will be undertaken within a 1 km square near their home.
The survey routes will each contain ten sampling points where volunteers will stop and listen for bats for two minutes at a time, and volunteers can make their own way, walking, cycling or by car, between the sampling points. There will be a minimum of three surveys during the year – in late June, July and August, but volunteers can undertake more if they wish.
It is hoped that Bat Search will continue in future years, having laid the foundation for future bat monitoring. The aim of the Bat Search is to raise awareness of bats among Island residents and encourage the involvement of those who are new to bats and wildlife conservation.
Interested volunteers can sign up for Bat Search by emailing batsearch@manxbatgroup.org or phoning Bob Moon on 612067.
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