Little Brown Bat: Tiny Sky Shark

In this episode of 'Rarefied', host Meredith Meeker takes listeners on an adventure into the nocturnal world, featuring the little brown bat, one of North America's endangered bat species. The discussion includes detailed descriptions of the bat's physical characteristics, behaviors, and the severe threats they face, like White Nose Syndrome. Meeker shares personal experiences with bats and highlights conservation efforts alongside guest Dr. Christina Davy, an associate professor at Carleton University. Davy provides insights into bat research, challenges faced in their conservation, and actionable steps people can take to protect these essential aerial insectivores. The episode wraps up with hopeful notes on future conservation actions and their impact.

00:00 Introduction to Rarefied Podcast

00:49 Exploring the Little Brown Bat

01:46 Personal Encounters with Bats

02:51 Introducing Dr. Christina Davey

03:41 Understanding Little Brown Bats

05:48 White Nose Syndrome Crisis

09:59 Efforts to Protect Bat Populations

16:03 The Role of Bat Boxes

19:45 Supporting Bat Conservation at Home

22:18 The Importance of Bats in Ecosystems

27:01 Understanding Bat Echolocation

27:35 The Reality of Bat Bites and Rabies

28:41 Handling Bats Safely

32:41 Personal Experiences with Bats

39:27 Bats' Unique Abilities and Behaviors

44:49 Challenges in Bat Conservation

46:48 The Future of Little Brown Bats

49:26 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser

Transcript

Theme Song 0:00

In every stream, in every tree, a story lives, a legacy. Let's listen close, let's take a stand, to keep the wild across the land. In every stream, in every tree, a story lives, a legacy.

Meredith 0:23

Welcome you found us. Let the adventure begin. This is rarefied the podcast where we're going to learn to love some of our rarest and most imperiled species. I am your host, Meredith Meer. And in this week's episode, we are dusting off our headlamps, putting on our PPE and heading out into the night. We're turning our gaze to the stars and hoping to catch sight of what was once a common species. This week we are exploring the world of the little brown bat. The little brown bat is a mammal that can be found across much of North America. It weighs about the same as a loony or a dollar coin. Its body is only about four to five centimeters long, but its wingspan is around 25 centimeters. This bat is a voracious eater and primarily eats insects during the summer months, the little brown bat roost in large trees or buildings, but hibernates in caves or abandoned mines from October to March. Globally and in the United States, the little brown bat is considered vulnerable. And in Canada it's imperiled. Here in my province of Ontario, the little brown bat is considered endangered, and sadly, it's not the only bat species here in Ontario that is at risk. Seven out of our eight bat species are all endangered.

1:42

Considering how endangered the little brown bat is, I've been lucky enough to have a few encounters with this species and several other of our bat species here in Ontario.

Meredith 1:53

Growing up, spending summers in an uninsulated cottage definitely meant that we had the odd bat or two get in. Though I cannot say with any certainty if it was a little brown bat or not, it was always a big deal, usually filled with screaming and a little laughter. It wasn't until I worked in wildlife rehab though that I really got to see bats up close. Seeing a little brown bat, take a mealworm from your tweezers to just chow down makes it a lot harder to be scared of them. And then after my stint in wildlife rehab, I worked in consulting, and as part of that, I was conducting bird and bat mortality surveys at wind farms. Sadly, because of this, I got to hold most of the eight bat species found here in Ontario in my hand. During those surveys, none of them were alive. After that experience, I began to be concerned about how bats were doing and if there were gonna be any bats left in the future. Which is why I am so pleased to introduce our guest this week who is working hard to protect bat species from disappearing forever. I was lucky enough to meet Dr. Christina Davey while doing my master's degree at Carlton University. She even came out for a day to help me with my field work. I'm not sure why it took me so long to have her on as a guest, probably because I'm such a fan girl, and I'm truly inspired by how thoughtfully and compassionately Christina approaches her work, her studies, and her students. Christina is an associate professor at Carlton University where she works to help inform the recovery of species at risk, especially fats, amphibians, and reptiles. We are so very lucky that she took the time to chat with us. So we're talking about the little brown bat. Very exciting. I'd like to start off with just what's your favorite thing about them or working with them?

Christina 3:51

Ooh, I mean, I have many favorite things about working with them, but I think the thing that keeps me interested in them for years and years on end is all the things we don't know yet. So we know that they live a long time, over 40 years in some cases, we know they have Only one pup per year, and they take really good care of that pup, and they have this really complex social system that we're only starting to understand. We know they can navigate really well across the landscape, but there are still all these other mysteries to unravel, and I think that's my, that's my favorite thing about them.

Meredith 4:27

I mean, it certainly keeps you busy

Christina 4:30

It does keep me busy.

Meredith 4:31

and that's pretty unusual. Cause I mean, the little brown bat, this is a pretty small mammal having such a long lifespan. Is that kind of different from, from most other animals?

Christina 4:43

Yeah, absolutely. So they're an exception among, mammal species in that the general trend for mammals is that the larger the body size gets, the longer the lifespan becomes. And bats, and I believe also naked wool rats, are exceptions to that rule.

Meredith 4:59

So you were saying, fairly long lived, only one pup. Is this part of the reason they're at risk, or why are these species endangered?

Christina 5:10

Well, when I started working with little brown bats, I was first introduced to them on an undergraduate field course when I was finishing my undergraduate degree. And they weren't endangered at that time. And the time I had made it to the end of my master's degree, I really wanted to integrate conservation science work with continuing to study bats. And I wasn't able to find any advisor who would take me on for such a project because every time I talked to someone they said, well, they're not, they're not at risk. There's not like they're not facing any major threats. So I went elsewhere for my PhD research and worked on turtles instead. And while I was doing that the students. Invasive infectious disease showed up in North America that had not been previously described. by a fungus that infects the bats while they're hibernating. And it causes a disease called White Nose Syndrome, because the fungus forms this fuzzy white growth on the bats noses. And within only a few years, little brown bats, which were one of the most common mammal species in North America, had suddenly crashed, and in some places in Eastern North America, 95 percent of their populations had been wiped out. In a very short period of time, they're not endangered because of their life history, so that that slow reproduction, the one pop per year, but because of that, once they became endangered, it takes a really long time for those populations to recover. And so it's a challenge in terms of recovering them after that population crash.

Meredith 6:35

And do you think that there's You said, like you said, there's so many unanswered questions about the little brown bat and people weren't really doing a lot of research on them until they became endangered. Is that a bit of a shortcoming with how our funding kind of works? Because obviously, I mean, it helps to know lots about the species you're trying to recover.

Christina 7:03

I should clarify that they actually were an incredibly well studied species before they became endangered. And my challenge when I, when I wanted to integrate conservation and bat work or white nose syndrome arrived and wanted to do that specifically here that there was a lot of research on little brown bats. and some of our other bat species and really excellent work studying their behavior and their life history and their echolocation strategies and there's some really amazing neuroethology work trying to understand using little brown bats as a study system trying to understand how bats are honing in on targets. when they're chasing insects at night using echolocation. And although we knew a lot about them, this disease still arrived, was unknown, and it took a lot of additional research to be able to understand how it was affecting the bats, what exactly was causing it, how that could be mitigated, and, and how the bats are responding. And so I, I don't think it's a, I don't think this is particularly an illustration of a species who, where

Meredith 8:07

Okay. Okay. very much.

Christina 8:52

work that's been done, that it's present across Europe, across Asia, it does live on vibrating birds in those places, but those bats have co

Meredith 9:02

Yeah.

Christina 9:13

were able to repopulate and recover, and what we've seen with the little brown bats here is that they've actually gone through that same process that we think the European and Asian species went through at some point in the distant past. And we had those 95 percent crashes, the 5 percent that's left still here, and in some places is slowly showing signs of recovery.

Meredith 9:36

That's great. 95 percent crash. That's huge. But like

Christina 9:40

was huge.

Meredith 9:42

signs of recovery. That's very hopeful. And I haven't really covered a species where. You know, a virus or fungus has been the main cause of their declines. So how can people, or like, how are people treating this threat? Like, how do you prevent the spread or how are you helping the populations recover? Cause it must look slightly different than just habitat restoration or protected areas.

Christina 10:10

The initial research that was done focused very heavily on treatments and trying to identify either chemical treatments or potentially a vaccine could protect the bats. There's also been some amazing work looking at the microbiomes of bat wings to try and understand, so the microbiome is the aggregation of all of the microbes living on a surface. on a bat wing you'll find various fungi, growings that are, that are not pathogenic, that are not causing disease. You'll find a range of bacteria all of those together from the microbiome on the bat's wing. And there was the idea that maybe some bats were more susceptible to this disease than others because they had. They were lacking some other microbe on the wing that could fight off this pathogenic fungus that was causing the disease. And so there's been amazing work trying to characterize that microbiome and understand whether we could isolate some particularly useful bacteria or virus from the bat's wings naturally, and then apply it to bats that don't have that to help them fight off the disease. That research has produced all sorts of amazing studies and really expanded our understanding of microbiomes and the interactions between different microbes. It has not yet produced a treatment. That is very effective and can be scaled up across the landscape to protect populations from white nose syndrome. So there's, there's great work being done in that treatment field, but so far it, it isn't the sort of landscape scale solution that we need. In Eastern North America. where the disease was moving through much more quickly than the research could keep up with. just saw these rolling mortality events for a number of years. And in some places, hibernacula that used to have hundreds of bats in them. We have none now, and in some places Hibernacula that had tens of thousands of bats in them had only a few thousand. But, at that point we had two possible options. One option was, those remaining bats just hadn't died yet, and we were just waiting for them to slowly trickle down to extinction. And that's where a treatment would have been really important. Or, those remaining bats have something innately different about them that helps them to resist or tolerate the disease. And therefore, they're going to be the core of this population that can recover. And we were very lucky that we're actually in the second scenario. at those sites that had tens of thousands of bats and then went very, very, very low to sort of 1, 500 in some cases, in Ontario, at least, we are starting to see those numbers tick upwards again. And we're back up to sort of 5, 000 or 6, 000 in some of those sites. So that's really, really good news. And it tells us that the populations can tolerate the fungus are slowly, slowly recovering, which means that we're now into small population land, right? And so recovering those populations actually has nothing to do with the fungus that drove them to be endangered in the first place, and is all about supporting recruitment in the summer, helping their pups to survive, helping the females to survive to produce more pups, and that's all about habitat protection. So we kind of come full circle with little brown bat and really recovering them from white nose syndrome is all about habitat protection.

Meredith 13:32

What's their preferred habitat or how do we, what good recruitment habitat?

Christina 13:37

Well, they want somewhere warm and dry to raise their pups. And for little brown bats, that could be a very large tree cavity. It could be an attic in a building. We monitor several building roosts of little brown bats that are in churches or people's houses. And they usually aren't in the parts of buildings that people are actually actively using. So it is possible to safely. You know, share your house with a roosted bot. As long as it's warm and dry and the pups can hang out there while the moms are out foraging, that's an effective colony. And obviously they want somewhere that predators like raccoons can't easily get into. And then around that roost site, they also need access to good foraging habitat. So a female little brown bat that's pregnant with her pup, is going to give birth to a pup that's about a quarter of her body weight, so she needs to eat a lot to produce Gigantopup, right? So she's eating like half her body weight in insects every night, and she needs access to healthy insect population where she doesn't have to fly a really long distance to find that many prey items. Then after she gives birth to Gigantopup, she's going to go out every night and forage to produce enough milk for Gigantopup, who's now, you know, to a half of her size as it keeps growing. And so again, she's going to need access to a really healthy insect population where insects are abundant, she can easily find the food that she needs. And so maintaining that kind of habitat for bats is a combination of teaching people to live safely alongside bats, if they have them in their houses, and if they're willing to cohabit with them. And also ensuring that we keep the landscape healthy from the point of view of insect populations as well. So that means maintaining healthy wetlands on the landscape, maintaining forest patches, all of the things that are good for not only little brown bats, but also all the other species out there, including us.

Meredith 15:29

Yeah, and lots of aerial insectivores, like our swallow species are in trouble because presumably there's something going on with their insects. I mean, we've all heard about the importance of pollinator gardens, and we need to bring back and support our native pollinators, but it's not just about them. They're just an important part of the ecosystem. And we need, like you said, healthy landscapes so that we We have healthy environments, which will probably tell healthy people too. So just really important. And you're talking about these warm, dry spaces. I've seen a lot of that box designs out there. Are they a thumbs up or a thumbs down or really depends on how they're maintained.

Christina 16:12

Oh, that's a really good question. I can't give you a thumbs up or thumbs down answer because it's not, it's not that kind of situation, but I would love to tell you the short version of that boxes. So here it is, bats using a maternity roost are going to, you know, form this nice big aggregation. Well, little brown bats will form a nice big aggregation, they'll birth their pups, the pups will cluster together while the moms are out foraging, the moms will come back and feed their pups. And that's, that's sort of a core important piece of the bat's roosting habit, and it would be really, really convenient if they just had one important roost and we could just protect that. But in fact, bats will use a roost network. Not a single roost, and so alongside that maternity roost, those bats will also have found and be able to return to and use a number of other roost sites in the area. And some of those may be in trees, and some of those may be in other buildings, and access to that network of roost means the bat can find the best roost for any particular day as the temperature varies. On a cold day, they may choose a warmer roost, and on a warmer day, they may need to choose a cooler roost, right? And so, bat boxes each chat box is going to provide one roost location that can be added to a bat's roost network. If it's particularly warm, it may be a really great roost for the early spring, right where warmth is important the bats are looking for somewhere cozy on a really, really cold morning. If it's the middle of the summer and that roost is exposed to direct sunshine, it may get so hot in there that it could kill a bat. That's roosting inside. But that's where the bats are typically going to move away somewhere else and find a roost, say, in the foliage of a tree, in the shade where there's good, you know, wind blowing through the leaves and they're a little bit cooler. The bat boxes are useful in that they're adding habitat to the landscape, and little brown bats are particularly fond of bat boxes. So they are a good tool for little brown bat conservation, not so much some other species. But they're not, they're not a substitute for also maintaining these bigger cavity roosts. And they're less likely to be good maternity roosts because they're more likely to get these temperature spikes. If a bat is in a bat box and it gets too hot, an adult bat a juvenile that's already flying can go, Oh, this is uncomfortable and leave. But if a pup that's not flying yet is in a bat box the middle of a heat wave and the temperature spikes, that can actually kill the pups. And you do see that sometimes that they'll end up dead out of the bat And so what we really want to do is maintain this network of many, many roost locations on the landscape. So the bats can set their network up and use it the way that works best for them.

Meredith 18:50

So bat boxes can be helpful. Hopefully bats use them during the time of year where they're most successful. And I had heard that about the pups, but that's probably they're choosing that roost potentially because there's not that network of roosts if it's not ideal for raising pups. Or, I mean, we're also in climate change, so surprise heatwaves do happen.

Christina 19:18

they do happen, and they can be pretty rough on bats. Yeah, I think bat boxes are a useful tool for little brown bat conservation. They don't work well for most other species that we have in Ontario. There are some species out west that will also use them, but bat boxes here are typically used by little brown bats and big brown bats. The other species, some of which are also in danger due to white nose syndrome, don't really like them. They're not the right type of roost for them to use.

Meredith 19:45

Other than Putting up that box is what can, you know, the average person do to help support little brown bat conservation.

Christina 19:55

The single most important thing people can do in their own lives to support bat conservation is to keep their cats indoors. Cats are very, very good at batting bats out of the air. And a flying bat is basically, identical to any of the cat toys that you might buy at the pet store and like flop around your house for your cat, right? They just, they're cat candy. So keeping your cat indoors is going to be good for bat conservation as well as bird conservation. Anything that you're doing to support healthy insect populations is also directly supporting bats and other aerial insectivores. So like you said, planting pollinator gardens, if you're in an apartment building, out, you know, some potted plants. pollinators can come to. if you're in a position to support wetland conservation, that is also directly supporting conservation of bats and of course a number of other species.

Meredith 20:49

That's great. We haven't really talked about outdoor cats on this podcast yet. And it can be a bit of a hot button issue because people are very passionate about their pets. But I have cats. I love cats. My cats get outside time on leashes or I've built them catios. In the past, and ultimately, it keeps your cat healthier and safer while still giving them the freedom of enjoying outside. And you're not damaging the local ecosystems. So I think that's a really important message to get out there as well. And also, we haven't really talked about it, but little brown bats are still around urban centers, right? Like, these aren't just like, far up north. So having these cats can have a big impact.

Christina 21:39

Yeah. Absolutely. And I get it. I mean, I grew up with outdoor cats and I didn't know. Right? I didn't, I didn't learn that outdoor cats are a problem or that it's really not as safe for the cat, until quite a lot later. And so I get it, right? We all have norms that we're used to and the reality is that if you want to do something, one thing to really conserve bats and birds, keeping your cat indoors is. that people can do.

Meredith 22:04

And why should people, this is cynical question, but why should people care enough about bats to keep their cats indoors? Like why are little brown bats an important part of our ecosystems?

Christina 22:18

So I'm actually not going to try to convince people they should care about bats, because you know, listener, you may or may not, and that's okay. That is, that is your choice. I love them. You don't have to. But I will tell you the reasons that I think they're important, and you can decide how that works for you. So first off, from my point of view, they're just amazing. They're inherently fabulous and fantastic creatures, and I, I just, you know, a world without bats and it would be so much less rich. In terms of the direct services that they provide to people there's, there's a whole list. So bats globally are seed dispersers. So they help to maintain healthy forests and healthy ecosystems. That's the, the bats that are either eating fruit and then, you know, carrying the seeds away in their stomachs and pooping them away. Farther from the parent tree, and then the new tree can grow there. Or they're actually carrying the fruit in their mouth to another feeding site and then dropping the seeds there. There's a number of nectar feeding bats that are, they basically work like nocturnal hummingbirds and they pollinate various plants and play a really important role as pollinators. There is a nectar feeding bat that pollinates the agave plant, so if you're a fan of tequila, you can thank bats for that. None of that applies to the bats we have here, all of which are equally fabulous. So all of the bats we have in Canada are aerial insectivores, so they are feeding on insects that they either grab out of midair or pick off of surfaces. We have one species in Ontario called the Eastern Small Footed Bat that actually likes to roost under rocks on the ground, and we think it might also be crawling around and grabbing ground dwelling insects just for extra fun. Because all of our bats are aerial insectivores, they are a really key part of stabilizing the aerial food chain. So if you think about the airspace above you, it's basically a big ocean of air. you've ever heard about what happens when we remove sharks, that are top predators, from the ocean, and the food web kind of collapses, our top predators in the aerial ocean. So they're basically sky sharks flying around up there. Predating various insects, and if they're removed from the system, we actually do see a cascade of effects that includes an increase in the number of forest pest insects and agricultural pests. There's a really amazing study from the eastern United States, from Joy O'Keefe's lab, she and a student excluded bats with, they just built cages

Meredith 24:43

Um,

Christina 24:59

insects in forestry and in agriculture. There are also insects that can carry pathogens that are of human concern, right? Zika virus and West Nile virus are carried by mosquitoes, for example, which are one of the things that bats can eat. So they're, they're part of this very complex ecosystem, and they play a whole number of different roles. That do directly affect us. you like bats or not and you agree with me about how amazing they are, you should, but if you don't, are also all of these other reasons why you probably do want healthy bat populations out there.

Meredith 25:32

So next time you have a tequila drink or margarita like toast to the bat that made that drink possible.

Christina 25:41

Absolutely.

Meredith 25:42

I, I understand your point about not trying to convince people to love bats because bats are one of those animals that are in our mythology, in our psyche. We have so many different stories about bats and not many of them are positive, unfortunately, you know, vampires are, are associated with them. But is there a myth or like a big misconception out there? About bats that you wish people or the media would just stop propagating.

Christina 26:15

Ah, it's a good question. So part of the reason I'm not trying to convince people that they should like bats is because I don't think I need to. I have literally never shown someone a live bat in my hand. and not had them fall madly in love. amazing. When you see them up close and you can see what they're actually about, they are so fabulous. one sort of interspecies lost in translation issue that I guess I'd like to talk about is that bats often look like they're gaping at you and ready to bite you. If you see a picture of a

Meredith 26:52

Okay.

Christina 26:53

really nice closeup pictures that bat scientists take, and we think they're beautiful, so we show them to everybody else, and everybody else just sees this big mouthful of teeth. They're not trying to bite and they're not screaming at you. They're echolocating at you because when we take those pictures of bats, they're being usually held by essentially a giant right in what's a very scary situation to them, and they're echolocating to try and understand what is going on. You know, it's an alien abduction, basically, and they can't echolocate with their mouths closed. There are species that can, but the ones we have here have to open their mouths to echolocate. So when they've got their mouth open at you, it's because they're actually stinging an ultrasound at you, trying to understand what's going on, not because they're being aggressive. That said, I think we should probably talk about bat bites before we finish up, because bats are amazing. Rabies is terrifying. If you get bitten by a bat, you are very, very, very, very likely not to be bitten by a rabid bat. Most of our bats are not carrying rabies, and some of them are. So if you get bitten by a bat, just like if you get bitten by a raccoon, or a stray dog, or any other wild mammal, need to go talk to your doctor and ask about a rabies vaccination. The rabies vaccination works really, really well., If the bat that bit you is rabid, it'll protect you, and you're fine. If the bat that bit you was rabid, and you don't get vaccinated, you will not be fine because there is no treatment for rabies. So I just wanted to make sure that we're really clear that like the bats themselves are wonderful. If you ever happen to pick one up in that scenario, it might bite you because it's an alien abduction, right? You're picking it up and it's terrified. in that case, you really do need to go see your doctor and talk to them about a

Meredith 28:41

Yeah, if you find an, like, I mean, if you're able to catch a bat, probably the bat is either somewhere. It shouldn't be like, in your house or it's injured or sick. So, I mean, if you don't want to gloves, really good idea because they're, they're not our beds aren't huge. So if you have like, pretty heavy work gloves that should hopefully help you. I mean, still touching batch. That's not recommended. And if you're really nervous, rehab centers. Often take bats, so you could call somebody or, you know animal control. They'd be able to help you. Cause yeah, bats are really cool from afar, just like I wouldn't recommend, but like, yeah, go try and catch pigeons. Like I love pigeons. I love birds, but not recommending people go out and try and chase them around because you're just adding to the, to the conflict and not necessary to appreciate them, right? Yeah.

Christina 29:38

No. So yeah, if you do, if you do have a bat in your house, the step one is just open the windows and the doors. They usually will let themselves out. If they don't. And if it's cold outside, they may not want to because don't, they don't want to be out in the winter. a rehab center is a really good option. Like Meredith's saying, you want to pick up you want to pick up bats if you have to using very thick work gloves. again, if you do think you've been bitten or scratched, you should just check in with your doctor. Just make sure that you are okay and that you're helping the bat and yourself. What you can do that works really well is take a box and a dustpan, place the box over top of the bat. You could even use like a Tupperware so you can see what you're doing and you can see the bat on the inside, right? And just slide the box with the bat onto the dustpan now you've got it safely capped. You're not touching it, the bat's okay. you want to take it to a rehab

Meredith 30:30

Okay.

Christina 30:39

that way. Bats can get through very tiny cracks. This is just another thing I think is fun about bats, to be honest. Like, they can get through anything they can get their tiny head through, they can get the rest of themselves through. It's insane what they can squish through. If you want to use, like, a Tupperware with, you know, air holes poked in the lid and the lid properly sealed on top. And if you put like a little, when, when you put that in, they're used to being on something that they can hold on to, right? So they, like anything in nature that they find, they can hold on to. They can hold on to a cliff face. They can hold on to bark because they've got these very tiny sharp claws. But when you put them into plastic, they get freaked out because they're sliding around and they can't grip it. And that's not something they've experienced before. So what you can do is just throw like a face cloth or an old dish towel in there. bat will have something to hold on to and they'll calm right down. You can put the lid back on, take it to a rehab center that way.

Meredith 31:31

Yeah, that does pan trip trick. Excellent. Because then there's even less risk.

Christina 31:36

Absolutely. you won't see anything. is the reason that I'm being ridiculously clear about what to do if you get bitten is because the teeth are so tiny that you won't see a mark. been bitten by many, many, many bats. None of them have left a mark ever. And if you get a really proper bite from a bat, you won't see anything. And if you take it to your doctor, for example, and try and show them the bite, They won't be able to see anything either. The trick is to show up and say, I did get bitten by a bat. Let's talk about what I need.

Meredith 32:10

that is great to know because also like, you know, you think of like those vampire, like puncture marks and that's what you're going to see. So if you think you've been bitten, just go. And as somebody who you said, you've been bitten by many, you've handled bats, you're still around. So vaccine, Very effective. Also, hopefully none of them were rabid, but

Christina 32:33

were. Yeah, the

Meredith 32:34

right,

Christina 32:35

good.

Meredith 32:36

but you're someone who's actually held them in the field. So do you have any fun stories or favorite stories of working with them?

Christina 32:45

Oh man, I mean, they just, they make me happy. So, I'm repeating myself now. They just make me happy. Their fur is so soft. wings are so soft. We do wear gloves when we handle them and, and since White Nose Syndrome arrived, we also now wear Like latex gloves or nitrile gloves to make sure that we're not passing things among bats either. We change those regularly. But when I started a while ago, appropriate personal protective equipment was required, we used to just hold them in our bare hands. So I can tell you they are just the softest little creatures you could possibly imagine. When you're holding them, even, even with a glove on, which Please wear gloves. When you're holding them and they're echolocating, you can feel the vibration of the echolocation calls. So this, this tiny little creature in your hand is just kind of buzzing. And, know, you don't know if it's a year old, if it's 20 years old, if it's 40 years old, you don't know where it's been. They can fly hundreds of kilometers. among different hibernation sites to check them out or from a hibernation site to the maternity colony that they go to in the summer. So they're able to just navigate across the landscape in these really precise ways that we still don't fully understand. And that, you know, you got that tiny creature in your hand, and it can do all of these amazing things. It's just, it's fabulous. They also have we've already talked about how they have these very, very sharp little claws, so they can hold on to anything, right? And every once in a while, you'll go to release a bat, and basically all we do is, we, we lift our hand way up, we open our hand, and then we let them take off on their own. And little brown bats are used to taking off off tall trees, because they're often in a tall tree or off the top of a building. And so they sort of drop and then spread their wings and catch the air and swoop up again, so they make this beautiful parabola. And every once in a while there'll be a bat that's like, Nah, I'm gonna take off off here, and it just turns around and starts curling up your arm instead. Once you let go of them, it's, I mean, I'm, I'm inferring thoughts now, and I'm absolutely shamelessly anthropomorphizing, but they act as though they've thought, well, that wasn't so bad. You haven't eaten me. You're clearly not that scary. And then they just kind of hang out. It's amazing.

Meredith 35:03

That would be pretty incredible when just getting to see their flight up close, because like, one of the things that, because I'm a birder, so I love birds. And I'm fascinated by bats, but usually when I see them, they're high up. It's dusky. It's like hard for me to identify them. I wish I had one of those like plug in units for like my cell phone that can give me a best guess of like, yeah, the bat detectors. So I think having that. You know, personal connection or that up close is so unique and very jealous. I went out to do a miss netting, like volunteer day once for bats. And sadly we didn't, we didn't actually get any bats that night. So I have yet to have that experience. But what's the funniest or like most unexpected reaction you've gotten from people who. You tell them what you do and what you study.

Christina 36:02

Oh in, well, I have two and you can decide which one you like. When I was, when I was working on my PhD, I was a teaching assistant in a herpetology class, so that's a class about reptiles and amphibians, and I was telling them my work on reptiles. You know, turtles and snakes and bats and one of the students went, what do your parents think? But in the field, I think the funniest, the funniest moment I've had was doing exit surveys in Peterborough at a number of churches. And so we, you know, we'd show up and I went to pick a number of churches to watch just to see what was coming out and how big the colonies in those churches were. And, and I was by myself outside one particular church that also has a drop in center connected to it. And then there's a home for folks who are, you know, needing a place to stay right next door. And so I was wandering around this church, it was dusk, it was getting darker, and I was just staring at it like I was casing the joint or something. there was this group of folks sitting on the stoop of this church. next door, you know, just hanging out. It was evening, that's where they live. Just watching me looking like I'm casing the church or something. And they finally came over and were like what are you doing? It's like, oh, no, no, no, it's okay. I'm not like, This is what I'm doing. And I explained, I was waiting to whether anyone else came out and, you know, they live there. So I was like, well, have you, have you seen anything? And they hadn't, but got into a great conversation because one of the, one of the guys who was hanging out was, had just arrived in Canada from Ghana and had amazing bat stories. They have these giant fruit bats. In Ghana that will form large aggregations and trees in the city center where he had been living and he was telling me all about it. And I didn't find a new bat roost that night, but I did have a really great conversation.

Meredith 37:57

I mean, that's another really good point because we have a couple of species of bats here, but they're one of the most varied and diverse groups of animals that we, or at least land animals that we have. Right? Very, very cool to remember, you know, there's a wide range. We've got our little bats here, but not all of them are so little.

Christina 38:19

No, there's, yeah, we have eight species here and they would, they would all fit in your hand. But globally there are over 1400 described species of bat. And they're found on every continent except for Antarctica.

Meredith 38:32

Do you think there's still more bats out there that we need to describe?

Christina 38:36

Oh, almost certainly. Yeah, there's amazing work taxonomists around the world trying to understand where a bat that we think is currently, like, that we currently recognize as one species might actually contain two or more cryptic species. There's some great examples. So the there's two species of pipistrelle, which is this very small brown bat found in the United Kingdom that are almost identical in the hand. Okay. It's very, very difficult or sometimes impossible to reliably tell them apart if you're holding them in your hand. echolocation calls are at completely different frequencies. And so they've evolved to call at different frequencies, which means that the two species can recognize Members of their species and that the other species is a different species because of the way they're calling but we can't hear that unless we have specialized equipment that can hear ultrasound,

Meredith 39:27

This might be a silly question, but do all bats echolocate?

Christina 39:32

not a silly question. And no, all bats do not echolocate. if you look at the, the bats of the world as a big group, fall generally into two categories that have been called the Yintarotraptor. Chiroptera and the Yango chiroptera, like yin and yang, and chiroptera is the order that bats belong to. It means hand wing, which, you know, describes the wing that is made out of a modified hand, basically. so the, the one group of bats, one of those sub orders contains the bats we have here and many of the other species around the world, and they all echolocate. in that other sub order, some of those bats echolocate, some of them don't. you picture flying foxes, the really big fruit bats, like if you've ever seen the kid's book Stellaluna, Stellaluna is a flying fox, right, just that kind of fruit bat. And with very few exceptions, those fruit bats don't echolocate at all, and the ones that do, don't echolocate with the same really system that the other bats use, instead they just use a series of clicks. And It gets even cooler because there are now records of some species that are able to make sort of click or snap noises by snapping their wings of using their vocal cords.

Meredith 40:52

Wow. Okay, I'm glad I asked that question because that is a very cool fun fact, and one that I will probably break out at my next dinner party. So, thank you. And, I mean When people think of bats and hidden talents, echolocation is probably the first that comes to mind, but are there any other, you know, special powers or abilities that, you know, the little brown bat has perhaps that, like, makes it really cool or really well adapted to that sky ocean?

Christina 41:22

Yeah. In their maternity roost, so when they're not flying through the sky ocean they can recognize their own pups. So there are really, well, they probably wouldn't get approved now. There are really neat experiments that were done several decades ago where researchers removed pups that were hanging in a maternity roost and put them on the floor of the roost and then watched what happened. And the moms came back, their pups, and then moved them back up to where they had been roosting before. So they're able to recognize one another as individuals. probably not surprising, like that's a very important adaptation that most mammals have to some extent, right? We're not the only mammals that have complex social systems, but I just think it's really neat. they can also, to some extent, recognize one another's individual calls. And if there are many, many little brown bats, or other bats will do this too, if there are many little brown bats flying around an area foraging, say there's been a, a fly emergence and there's lots of food all of a sudden, so everyone's, you know, at the party foraging, and they're all echolocating, and they all have similar echolocation calls, they'll do a similar thing to what we do in, say, cocktail parties. you know when you're in a cocktail party and everybody's talking, and you'll slightly change the frequency at which you're speaking so that you can be heard. Alongside the person next to you who's also speaking and the other person, bats do the same thing, so when they're flying in large groups and they're, they're foraging, they'll slightly shift the frequency of their echolocation calls so that they can detect their echoes versus the ones of, you know, their buddy over there, who's also

Meredith 43:03

That's very cool because it's not just like, oh, they've got this one called this does it but they're, you know, they're really adaptable with that. So, cause when you see the, it's always just like that sonar. Bubble. And so you don't really think of it as, you know, something changeable or adaptable. So very cool. And another kind of out there question, but if little brown bats were able to like give a lecture or like a Ted talk to humans. Like, what do you think would be their topic? What do you think they would want to tell us?

Christina 43:39

foraging. Oh, I

Meredith 43:42

messing with my wetlands.

Christina 43:44

I have no idea. And there's a. There's a philosophy paper from, I think, the 1970s that specifically talks about how we just can't know what it's like to be a bat. if I had to guess, you know, they might talk about how we should stop messing with their wetlands. But I wonder if their first complaint would just be that, you know, this subset of people keeps catching them and making them wear bracelets. And you know, messing with their swarming activity. And I, you know, I am comfortable with the work that we do in our research methods because we use non harmful methods and we're very, very careful about that. And if we think that there is a problem, then we switch our methods to try and fix whatever that problem might be. And I am aware that the work that we're doing with these very, you know, intelligent, very complex, probably annoys the heck out of them. I don't know. I wonder if they'd just be launching a complaint against bat research.

Meredith 44:49

That's actually really funny and probably great last question segue, but you mentioned it sort of at the beginning when you were looking at research versus conservation. What are the challenges of balancing scientific research with conservation efforts or challenges and opportunities maybe?

Christina 45:10

I think ideally if we're working with wildlife and especially if we're working with endangered or threatened wildlife, we are, you know, we have an obligation to make sure that none of what we're doing is going to further endanger them. And that means there are some questions that, you be harder to answer or that we just decide we shouldn't answer. Everybody has a different line that they might draw about what is or isn't ethical in wildlife work. For me personally, I, it's important to me to know that I'm not, Increasing mortality that I'm not messing with an individual's ability to survive and reproduce and that I'm causing as little stress as possible during the time that I'm handling the animal recognizing that it is going to be stressful and I, you know, owe it to them to handle them very gently and respectfully, then let them go as quickly as possible, but everybody draws their lines in different places. Right? So it's yeah, I, there are, there are some things that I would love to know about bats. I cannot see a non harmful way to address, and so those are questions that I'm just not going to chase. Maybe somebody else will choose to, that's for them. But my scientific curiosity is not more important than being of those animals, and You know, they're also amazing beings in the same earth that we're all sharing, so, you know, we should be living alongside one another.

Meredith 46:36

That's great. And I said last question, but I definitely lied because I'll never let you go. No. But last sort of question. What do you think? Is the future of the little brown bat. Do you think we're going to see them return to be abundant sky predators? what do you think is next for the little brown bat?

Christina 46:59

That's a really easy answer. depends. depends on the decisions that governments in Canada and the United States make now, and, you know, the decisions that are made in the future. We have all the tools we need to conserve that. We know what they need. And it is also what humans need to be healthy and well. so there's a, you know, there's a selfish motivation here too. But sometimes, you know,

Meredith 47:32

Okay.

Christina 47:43

Take care of our landscape in the next few years. we conserve the wetlands we have remaining, if we work to restore our forests and wetlands to places where they used to be, alongside

Meredith 47:54

Okay.

Christina 47:54

the other benefits in terms of fighting climate change, and preventing flooding, and all of those other things, that will also help to support the labrambat populations as they recover. If we maintain healthy insect populations, being good for us, that will also maintain a steady food source for the little brown bat populations as they're recovering. And I guess the last big question mark that we haven't touched on, but that is worth mentioning, is that little brown bats are also affected by mortality at wind turbines. And so if we manage our wind energy infrastructure in a way that also protects bats, then can have sustainable, renewable energy power the province. As well as healthy populations, and we have the tools to do

Meredith 48:44

I choose the path of hope right now. I'm still in that train and that if we have the tools, I'm sure there will still be decisions that will be frustrating because they'll be so obviously short. Short term gain or short sighted, but I'm hopeful that more and more decisions will be made for the better and towards restoration. So I'm going to take hope that we have the tools and that my kids and my grandkids will get to see bats flying around maybe even more than I do. Thank you so much for, for taking the time to chat with me. I've really appreciate it.

Christina 49:24

It's great to talk to you. Thank you.

Meredith 49:26

And that's a wrap on this episode with the little brown bat. And Christina Davey, a massive thank you to Christina for taking the time to chat with us. And if you loved this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. It helps rarefied reach more people who care about our planet. Its rarest creatures. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at rarefied pod and sign up for our newsletter, on our website for updates and behind the scenes content. Next time we're featuring a moth that breaks all the rules, you won't wanna miss it. So get out there and explore the wild, because every species has a story and every one of us can make a difference. I'm your host Meredith Meeker. Thank you for listening. Happy Trails.