Explorers for Bats

Duration:

13 minutes, 28 seconds

Discover how recreational rock climbers and park service scientists team up to learn more about bats.

As white-nose syndrome spreads across the United States, national park scientists look to rock climbers to help them study bat populations impacted by or at risk from the disease. Trained biologists with techinical climbing skills are few and far between (although you will see a few in this video!), so the two communities have teamed up to share their skills and knowledge for the benefit of threatened and endangered species.

Bats are natural controls to insect populations, and in some places help pollinate important foods. Both of these roles help secure food production with their benefits to agriculture. In addition to their usefulness to humans, bats are amazing members of our ecosystem with the adaptations like true flight and echolocation.