Last updated: November 7, 2019
Article
Bewitched by Bats from an Early Age
By Renata Harrison
Scott Sprague Photo
Tonight I witnessed something truly unique. We’ve trapped and taken measurements of over 25 little brown bats. I’ve seen the intricacies of their wings, their fuzzy bodies, their tiny teeth. We even caught a flying squirrel. As amazing as all of that was, though, the real marvel of the night was a special relationship that formed.
Twenty-five people stand in a circle listening to wildlife biologist Lisa Bate explain the evening’s events. We’re all here for the Going Batty field trip, having come from near and far to discover the world of bats. One of the participants, six-year-old Izzy Herreid-Terrill, has driven six hours from Bozeman, Montana to come to Glacier for this field trip. As Lisa tells us the plan for the night, no one is paying better attention than Izzy. Clutching two plush, stuffed bats to her chest, she hangs on to Lisa’s every word.
Izzy’s obsession with bats began during a visit to Lewis and Clark Caverns in southern Montana, where she was upset to learn how they were affected by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has killed millions of bats in North America. On the first day of kindergarten, when teachers asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, she said she wanted to save bats from the disease. Izzy feels that bats are misunderstood. “They’re not as scary or ugly as adults think,” she explains.
Lisa Bate gets it. Surrounded by bat enthusiasts, she tells us how her own fascination began. As a young girl not much older than Izzy, she’d sit out in the backyard, watching as bats appeared out of the darkness to hunt for insects. She developed her very own bat-signal—a rock in a sock. Flinging the bright, white sock into the air, she watched as dark forms swooped to investigate it.
Lisa has been studying flying animals for over 25 years as a wildlife biologist. She earned her master’s in wildlife biology, focusing on birds. When she arrived in Glacier, she admits, “I didn’t know anything about bats, other than that I liked them and I was fascinated by them.” She was surprised to learn that there had never been a formal survey of bats in the park. With the threat of white-nose syndrome looming, Lisa decided to take action. She recruited the help of world-renowned bat biologist Cori Lausen. With funding from the Glacier National Park Conservancy, Cori led Lisa and her team on a crash course in bat surveying. Two years later, Cori left the project in Lisa’s capable hands, and it continues to this day. Tonight, Lisa and her colleagues have invited the public to take a peek into the mysterious world of bats.
NPS/Renata Harrison
After an introduction to bat biology and survey techniques, we head off to check out the mist nets used for trapping. Lisa leads the pack, striding ahead at her field-biologist pace. Most of us amble behind, chatting, but someone is running to catch up with Lisa. Izzy’s full of questions, and Lisa bends down as they walk to make sure she hears them. I watch as these two bat buffs confer like longtime colleagues, stepping in stride. Although things have changed, Lisa has typically been in the minority as a female in her field. She’s clearly delighted to talk to this gung-ho little girl.
Lisa and her team’s task tonight is to collect, identify, and take measurements of as many bats as they can catch. The goal of these surveys is to get a better idea of which species of bats live in the park and where they hibernate.
Obtaining this baseline data is essential, especially now with the threat of white-nose syndrome. The disease has killed millions of hibernating bats. Some species have been reduced by as much as 90%. One of these species is the little brown bat, the most abundant bat in Glacier. Little brown bats are extremely susceptible to white-nose syndrome. The fungus invades their tissues as they hibernate, disrupting water and mineral balances, and often killing them. Since its discovery in a cave in New York in 2006, white-nose syndrome has spread to 33 states and 7 Canadian provinces. “It’s a matter of when—not if—it arrives in Montana,” says Lisa.
USFWS
Sitting in the waning evening light, we eagerly wait for the trapping to begin, but Lisa informs us that we won’t start until the birds stop singing. That’s the bats’ cue to come out and start hunting, and our cue to raise the nets. All nine of Glacier’s bat species are insectivorous and can eat thousands of insects a night. Izzy points out that the first time she saw bats they were eating mosquitoes, which immediately earned them her support.
Through a combination of echolocation, highly adapted wing structure, and super-fine sensory motor control, bats pinpoint prey in the dark. Surprisingly, they can also see the fine mesh of mist nets used for trapping. If the nets are at the wrong angle to the wind, if there’s too much moonlight, or if raindrops are stuck to the net, bats will notice and fly around them.
After about an hour of waiting, there’s a flurry of excitement. At the mist net set up over the creek, Lisa’s colleagues have started catching bats. Radioing back and forth to each other, the biologists give instructions. “We’ve already got thirteen down here!” “Let’s get this going,” Lisa says. “I gotta start processing these!”
NPS/Renata Harrison
Lisa rushes to her truck, a batmobile in every practical sense. As we gather around, eager to see our first bat, Lisa asks for an assistant. Izzy is perched in the truck bed, ready to hand Lisa the tools she needs. Another young helper records data. It’s important to process the bats as quickly as possible so they can be set safely free again.
Although she’s working quickly, Lisa doesn’t leave Izzy, or the rest of us, in the dark. She talks through the process of identifying the bats, holding each one gently in gloved hands. With each step, Lisa makes sure Izzy can see and understand what she’s doing. As I watch her look at the bats’ teeth, measure their wings, and determine their sex, I realize that I’ve never really given bats a chance. I admit, I’m one of those adults who found them, well, a little scary and ugly. Seeing them up close and learning about their incredible adaptations starts the wheels turning, but it’s Lisa and Izzy’s enthusiasm that seals the deal.
NPS/Renata Harrison
Watching them bond over bats, I think back to when I was Izzy’s age. Although I loved the outdoors, I was a lot more fearful than she is. My family spent summers in a cabin on a lake in northern Ontario, where spiders and night noises sent me into waves of panic. Coming back from the outhouse in the dark, I’d dart to the cabin and close the door breathlessly behind me against the night. I didn’t know what was out there, so my mind conjured monsters. I overcame my fear of spiders by learning about the adaptations behind their creepy appearance. It continues to surprise me how education can erase fear. Before tonight, I never wanted to get this close to a bat. The closer I look, though, the more enamored I become of these amazing creatures of the night.
It’s now past midnight. My urge to go home and crawl into bed is winning over any desire I have to study more bats. I’ve been squinting through my camera so long, I’ve lost track of who’s around me. I walk to my car in the dark alone, not tempted to run breathlessly like I used to. As I drift off to sleep in my warm, comfy bed, I remember that Izzy was still there when I left a while ago. Could she still be out there now, perched in Lisa’s truck bed, persevering through every last bat?
The next day, I find myself talking about bats to anyone who will listen. Luckily, I catch Lisa at the office and thank her for a wonderful evening. Somehow buzzing with energy after such a late night, she’s clearly charged up by something. “Wasn’t that little girl great!!” she blurts out. Beaming, Lisa tells me proudly that Izzy stayed until 2:00 a.m. helping her process all the bats. As she rushes to her next adventure, she trails off, “I have just about a million more things I could tell you about Izzy…”
***
Scott Sprague Photo
Later, I’m sitting in my office, poring through photos from the field trip. My attempts at photographing the bats squirming in Lisa’s hand under the dull glow of a headlamp are as fuzzy as the bats themselves. I sigh and rub my eyes, feeling a bit morose at not having done these unique creatures justice. It’s difficult to capture how delicate they are, how ephemeral. I wonder if I’ll ever have the chance to see them like that again.
An email pops up in my inbox, interrupting my thoughts. It’s from Izzy’s mom. She writes that Izzy came home from the field trip and said it was the best day of her life! She could recite almost word-for-word everything she learned from Lisa that night. She, too, couldn’t stop talking about bats the day after the field trip. When asked if she wanted to share anything about the event, Izzy said, “Only that more people should learn about the things in nature all around them, and then they wouldn’t be scared.”