Hey folks, here's a nice mention by @fredfrick of our project and the iNat platform in a recent review:
Online databases and sharing portals (e.g., AfriBats on iNaturalist.org) offer new opportunities for recording species observations, coordinating datasharing, and potentially facilitating monitoring of species that are readily observable.
Frick, W.F., Kingston, T. & Flanders, J. (2019), A review of the major threats and challenges to global bat conservation. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14045
Despite the global outrage and concern over this unprecedented, intentional killing of a highly threatened species, the Mauritian government is now ordering another cull, which would bring this species even closer to extinction.
Please sign the petition linked above, spread the word via social media, and think of any means and contacts that might put the Mauritian government under pressure to revoke this irresponsible decision!
The resolution is entitled Protection of Wild Bats from Culling Programmes and given in full below due to its timely and outstanding relevance for the conservation of bats. Especially the last points are worth reading!
This is particularly relevant in Africa where many bat colonies face persecution due to widespread, and largely unfounded, fear of bats spreading diseases.
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ACKNOWLEDGING that bats, over one fifth of terrestrial mammals, are among the most endangered species;
AWARE of alarming declines in bat populations globally, due to anthropogenic pressures such as habitat degradation, fragmentation and destruction, roost disturbance, climate change, bushmeat trade, disease and a history of persecution;
ACKNOWLEDGING that bats are long-lived mammals where females usually give birth to one young per year, reproductive rates are low and populations slow to recover from disturbance and declines;
RECOGNISING that bats have an essential role in the natural world, as insect predators and, through their seed dispersal and pollination services, are crucial to the regeneration of forests and to agriculture as a result of critical relationships with wild food crops such as cashew and durian;
FURTHER RECOGNISING that ecosystem services offered by bats are globally worth billions of US dollars annually, but are rarely evaluated or considered in natural capital accounts and policy decisions;
MINDFUL that bats remain an extremely misunderstood group of species, with many negative perceptions driving their persecution;
CONCERNED that misinformation about bats causing economic damage and transmitting diseases is exacerbating the human-bat conflict, and that lack of institutional and enforcement capacity (and willingness) are impacting bats in many regions;
ALARMED that due to perceived negative impacts on fruit harvests and human health, governments are legalising, condoning and implementing culling of bats, without a supporting scientific basis;
CONSCIOUS that culls of bats to mitigate disease may amplify the risk to human populations through increased contact rates of people with bats, changes in the dynamics of disease transmissions among bats, and stress-related increases in disease transmission;
DEEPLY CONCERNED that the loss or decline of bats has a negative impact on other species, and the critical ecosystem services they provide; and
RECOGNISING IUCN’s interventions to avert government culling of wild bat populations;
The World Conservation Congress, at its session in Hawai‘i, United States of America, 1-10 September 2016:
CALLS ON the Director General, the Species Survival Commission and the World Commission on Protected Areas, to provide technical and scientific support to governments and other agencies to ensure evidence-based approaches for the management of sustainable bat populations;
CALLS ON all IUCN State Members to allocate funding for the protection of bats and to provide incentives for conservation, adequate legislation and deterrent penalties to achieve this goal;
CALLS ON all IUCN Members to promote education about bats in order to dispel myths and human negativity towards bats and to foster understanding and co-habitation with people;
URGES governments to seek non-lethal solutions/mitigation measures to conflicts between humans and bats, as part of a strategy that combines scientific research on bat ecology and ecosystem services, as well as on life-history characteristics that support population models; and URGES governments to not authorise or sanction culls of wild bat populations unless there is peer-reviewed evidence of the significant impact of bats on food security or public health, all non-lethal solutions have been exhausted, there is clear scientific evidence and opinion that a cull will resolve the issue and not threaten species survival, and any decision to authorise a cull is underpinned by rigorous scientific evidence regarding the population structure and dynamics of the species and understanding of the impact of the proposed cull.
The Government of Mauritius has announced plans to cull endemic Mauritian flying foxes (Pteropus niger), which are ranked 'Vulnerable' by the IUCN Red List. This species is already locally extinct on La Réunion, and the planned cull would seriously threaten the remaining population on Mauritius.
UPDATE 2: Rettet den Regenwald, a conservation NGO, also launched a petition.
UPDATE 3: Sadly, the Government of Mauritius moved forward, and the first flying foxes have been shot down. There's a new article on National Geographic covering the issue.
It's been actually a while ago that AfriBats passed its 1500th observation - time to review what has happened since the last "five-hundred update", and to add some glittering charts, which are summarizing data since the project started! And just hover with your mouse over the graphs, you'll be surprised...
Data accumulation AfriBats is on a steady increase, with some bumps and lows, but overall it's a steep accumulation of exciting bat observations:
Observations per bat family Not surprisingly, some bat families are easier to spot (or catch, for that matter) than others. Clearly leading in this respect are fruit bats (Pteropodidae), which are frequently observed when roosting in trees:
Observed species richness per bat family In terms of species richness, the picture is quite different and vesper bats (Vespertilionidae) are dominating. But have a look at AfriBats' checklist which species still haven't been recorded at all!
Number of observations per species It's also quite informative how many times, on average, a species has been observed in the various families. Again, this very much depends how easy it is to spot different bat groups, but also how easy (or difficult) it is to identify them. Quite a few fruit bats (Pteropodidae) are very distinctive, and so are the 2 species of false vampire bats (Megadermatidae), Lavia frons and Cardioderma cor. Many horseshoe bats (Rhinolophidae), free-tailed bats (Molossidae), vesper bats (Vespertilionidae) and bent-winged bats (Miniopteridae) can only be identified to species level if handled and examined in detail by a specialist, hence the low number of species observations in these groups (there are many observations in these families IDed to genus but not species level):
Let's highlight some of the exciting new observations:
Already mentioned was one of my favourite species, the heart-nosed bat (Cardioderma cor), which has been observed here, here, and here. Check out this video, quite appropriately entitled Cutest Bat in the World:
We've seen wonderful glimpses of natural history such as observations of perch-hunting roundleaf bats, Hipposideros commersonii, in Madagascar. The bats cling to the trunk of trees, or hang from branches, while constantly scanning their surroundings with echolocation. Once a large insect passes through their "field of hearing" (such as a large beetle or hawk-moth), they will intercept and catch it, and then usually eat the prey after returning to the same perch.
Other observations are simply breathtaking shots of bat diversity such as this amazing Seychelles Flying Fox (Pteropus seychellensis) from La Digue.
Rather than photographing bats, there are loads of possibilities to record the sounds of bats - either the echolocation calls of insect-eating bats, or the courtship calls of epauletted fruit bats as done here and here. The how-to is outlined in an earlier post. Definitely a largely untapped opportunity to document bat occurrences across Africa!
Many studies have shown the outstanding role of these bats as ecosystem providers, a message that needs to be widely publicized in times when bats have received very negative press coverage due to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. So observations like this and this help improving the public perception of bats, and each AfriBats participant can contribute by spreading the word!
Also, AfriBats continues documenting bats as bushmeat in various parts of the continent such as in Ghana (here and here) or in DR Congo. Hunting bats is clearly not sustainable given the very slow reproduction of these mammals (most give birth to 1 or 2 pups per year), and avoiding bats as bushmeat is certainly a good way minimizing potential risks of disease transmission! Check out the position paper on bats and Ebola by Bat Conservation Africa (BCA) in case you haven't seen it yet (long version here)!
I'm very much looking forward to the next 500 observations! Cheers, Jakob
From May 15-25 is the Global Snapshot of Biodiversity for National Geographic's Great Nature Project, which means they're encouraging everyone to get outside during this time and share observations of biodiversity using iNaturalist. In the spirit of this event, we'd like to challenge everyone in two ways:
Let's add 20 new observations during the period. The current total stands at 1450 observations, so the target by 25th May is 1470 observations.
There are still quite a lot of species for which there is not a single observation on AfriBats, hence many of these species don't have a picture to illustrate the respective species pages. Let's target these species, some of which should be fairly easy to find.
We always welcome African bat observations from any time, but this is a great excuse for you to go outside now and document the bats in your neighbourhood.You know where they are, but AfriBats doesn't unless you share them! At the end of the Global Snapshot, we'll recognize the contributors and their observations.
Thanks for everything you contribute, we look forward to exciting new stuff!
Hi everyone! Check out the Facebook page of AfriBats.
It is jointly run by Carrie Seltzer and John Kinghorn. They will be highlighting interesting observations on this page, and interacting with the Facebook community.
Please use this page to spread the word: if you see bat observations from Africa posted to Facebook, let them know about AfriBats and invite them to share their observations with iNaturalist. Also, inform tour operators, conservation projects and staff of protected areas about AfriBats.
Today, the AfriBats-project passed its 1000th observation with a beautiful series of long-term observations of a family of Mauritian tomb bats (Taphozous mauritianus) by Martin Grimm from Tanzania.
Since the last collection of highlights, there's been a fantastic and increasing number of bat observations from around Africa, Madagascar and smaller islands. Some were obtained during dedicated research projects while a large number was contributed by interested citizen scientists.
Jack Bradbury, of Hypsignathus-fame, shared some of his historic bat observations from Gabon, which date back to the 1970ies and which were taken during a time when technology was far less advanced than today. Hard to imagine the serious constraints to bat research back in the days!
The same species was the focus of James Agyei-Ohemeng's observations at the University of Natural Resources in Sunyani, Ghana, who documented the fluctuating occupation of roost trees by straw-coloured fruit bats.
It's always nice to see bats in action, e.g. fruit bats photographed while feeding as in this, this, this, and this observation.
New species such as Rhinolophus willardi or Rhinolophus cohenae have been described, and AfriBats is glad to showcase pictures of these as well as some other little-known species, which will hopefully also help to put them more into the focus of conservations efforts: although bats do not belong to the "charismatic megafauna", many are threatened and urgently need better protection. Have you ever heard about Morris' myotis (Myotis morrisi)?
Very special mention goes to Paul Webala from Kenya and Natalie Weber from Germany, who have both significantly contributed to the growth of AfriBats.
All in all, it's been a wonderful journey through the next bunch of 500 observations, and I look very much forward to your new contributions over the coming month. Please share your thoughts, and show your own highlights, all of which you can do by leaving comments on this post.
You can now document observations by recording sounds. That's an exciting possibility for echolocation calls as well as mating calls of epauletted fruit bats. Currently, you have to upload your recording to SoundCloud, and then add the recording to the observation on iNat.
Please follow these steps when adding a sound to an observation:
Link your iNaturalist account to SoundCloud. There is a link to connect to SoundCloud under "Your profile" => "Edit your your profile". If you are not linked to SoundCloud, you will be prompted to link to SoundCloud when you add a sound to an observation.
Record a sound in the field.
Add an observation with location and date (preferably also with time). Click on “Add sounds” in the upper right hand corner.
You should see a list of your sounds on SoundCloud. Click on the box next to your sound recording, and then “Save observation” at the bottom of the page.
Remember, you can post sounds in addition to photographs or based on sounds alone. I've added new observation fields (recording method, time expansion factor and bat detector model), which should be used as essential background information when sharing echolocation calls.
To celebrate the 500th bat observation on AfriBats & iNaturalist, I thought I go through the archive and pull out my favourite top ten observations. Well, it's been extremely exciting since the start of the project, so the list is a bit longer than just 10, but I promise that each of them is worth looking at!
Simply amazing is the offshore record of Taphozous mauritianus, demonstrating the excellent dispersal capacity of this species (these bats have colonized São Tomé & Annobón in the Gulf of Guinea as well as several islands in the Indian Ocean):
http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139149
AfriBats has been a full-blown success due to the commitment of every single contributor and by far exceeds my initial expectations. Still, I'm not only hoping for a steady influx of new observations, but that this project will attract even more interest, e.g. with guides, rangers and managers of protected areas in Africa so as to become viral. Think of an annual BatBlitz in a national park where visitors, bat interest groups and scientists are collaborating to observe as many bats as possible in a single day.
Why not put out a camera trap in front of a baobab flower, a shea butter tree or a roost entrance? Do you know fruit bats roosting under the porch of your house – what about taking a picture every month and thus documenting group size and reproduction of these bats?
For those of you experienced with the identification of African bats: come on board! Not everyone needs to share observations, and additional expertise in species identification is more than welcome.
All in all we're jointly building a wonderful resource, and I'm very much looking forward to the next 500 observations. Stay batty, and see you on iNat!
