Just back from the 49th Annual Symposium of the North American Society for Bat Research in Kalamazoo, Michigan and what a treat it was!

There’s nothing better than being in a room full of passionate, brilliant people, sharing their hard-won knowledge for the benefit of bats around the world. It is, however, much like drinking from a fire-hose, with a new presentation of cutting-edge research every 15 minutes for three days.

Highlights included a photography workshop led by the legendary Brock Fenton & Merlin Tuttle, and up-and-coming Price Sewell.
Rodrigo Medellin presented fascinating work on the second-largest bat in the Americas, the Wooly False Vampire bat, showing that this carnivorous bat requires large, well-preserved forests for its conservation.

We really enjoyed talking to the many undergrads who explained their posters describing results of their fieldwork.

But mostly we were happy to catch up with old friends and make new ones, while discussing the latest efforts to mitigate threats to bats, including WNS, wind turbines, and habitat loss.

On the way back home, we got to wait for a delayed flight with Texas State Mammalogist Jonah Evans, who in addition to leading state efforts to fight WNS, also found time to entertain with his guitar till 1:30 am the previous night in his hotel room. What a good dude!