Liza Lehrer Assistant Director of the Urban Wildlife Institute has partnered with local volunteers on a community science project to monitor bat species activity in Chicago for the past seven years. Bats have amazing hearing ability, much superior to humans. They use their ultrasonic echolocation to navigate their environment. The method used by the citizen scientists to study bats is to record those calls, which are unique to each species. As part of a region-wide collaboration among several conservation organizations, community scientists collect bat acoustic data using a standardized protocol that consists of walking with an iPad and ultrasonic microphone on predetermined paths that cross key urban habitats, such as city parks, cemeteries, golf courses, forest preserves, and residential areas. These data provide zoo researchers with invaluable species-specific information about where bats are and aren’t living in the city, while volunteers learn about local bat ecology, acoustic monitoring, and bat call identification.
To learn more, please register for the Woods & Wetlands Sunday Speaker Series Zoom presentation on November 16 at 7:00 pm. All our programs are family friendly and open to anyone who is interested.