By Cristopher Pineda, Oct. 22, 2024
As the night turned dark on Cal Poly Pomona campus, there was a sudden flash of light. Unsure of what was crawling in the void, a group of students stumbled upon a tree, pointing at a single beeping detector underneath it and waiting for the silence of the night to be broken. Suddenly, they heard the chirping sounds: a bat has finally been found.
The second annual Fall Bat Week was a three-day event Oct. 3-5, when students had the opportunity to safely catch bats on CPP campus, make bat boxes for conservation of the species and host community outreach events to spread information about these flying mammals.
The event is the outcome of the collaboration between Rachel Blakey, a CPP associate professor from the College of Science, and associate professor and wildlife extension specialist Joy O’Keefe from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While O’Keefe gave a seminar to the CPP biology department last year, they came up with a plan to use O’Keefe’s research on bat boxes and Blakey’s lab to create a program where students can learn about conservation and teach the CPP community about bats in urban areas.
Even though some people perceive bats as scary and creepy, Blakey wants the event to teach students about bats and spread the news to the community that bats living on CPP campus make positive impacts on the environment.
“One of the things I’d love for people to experience is the wonder of the fact that we have these incredible animals with so many abilities,” Blakey said. “The fact that they can fly around at night only using sound, capture tiny things through the space and we should feel excited that they are amongst us.”
Participating students went out at night to safely catch bats using bat nets set up around the CPP campus Oct. 4. Students caught three different Myotis californicus bats, one of the few bat species found on campus. After catching the bats, students learned to identify the species based on distinct characteristics of native bats and learned how to perform wing punctures to collect data to sample the genetic variation of bats in the region.
Giselle Hernandez, an animal science student, took advantage of the opportunity to be more informed about bats on campus and understand the process of collecting each bat and their information. She said that her favorite moment from the event was using a dichotomous key to identify the bat species.
“This calls for attention to detail and becoming familiar with different tools, like the caliper to be able to make your own key to identify and differentiate species,” Hernandez said.
Before the community event, students listened to lectures about bats, bat boxes and the importance of bats in urban spaces. Afterwards, they created their own bat boxes using O’Keefe’s previous work in the Midwest.
O’Keefe explained bat boxes are being used to help bats survive in the areas where their natural habitat has shrunk. Instead of giving bats a sustainable way of living, bat boxes are used to replace their greenery. O’Keefe’s mission is to create better habitats using these bat boxes so that it is safer for bat use. In the past, O’Keefe has made bat boxes with slightly different parts to it, but at CPP, she got a chance to develop a different box
“This is the first time we try out this model of bat boxes with the added water and insulation,” O’Keefe said. “The via-silica packs filled with water act as a thermal mass which takes longer to cool in the night and longer to heat up during the day. The added insulation allows for the box to retain its temperature for longer.”
Even though the bat boxes are smaller in size, each bat box can retain around 100 because bats are naturally able to bunch up into “cuddles of bats,” O’Keefe said. Two bat boxes will be placed in the Voorhis Ecological Reserve in the northwest part of campus behind Building 1, and Blakey said she is hopeful to add some in the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies as well.
The community event Oct. 5 consisted of different activities for all ages. Participants were able to embark on late night bat walks at the Voorhis Ecological Reserve, Kellogg West Main Lodge or simply walk around campus using sonar detectors to pick up on bat frequencies . Students from Blakey’s labs also gave talks on different species on campus, bats’ use of echolocation and the importance of bat boxes. They also organized trivia and an arts and crafts section to educate the community.
Merlin Butler-Edwards, a visual communications design student, attended the event in hopes of having a good time and learning a bit more about bats.
“I learned more about bats than I thought I would,” Butler-Edwards said. “I didn’t know there were actually bats on campus or that there were a lot of bats in Southern California.”
Since last year’s Fall Bat Week, students from Blakey’s lab decided to form an incoming club, named Bat Advocacy and Tracking Club, to spread awareness of the importance of bats in the local ecosystem.
Incoming Club President Julliete Martinez, an environmental science student, said, “A lot of people don’t know that bats are good at controlling insects, are pollinators and do so much for the community, but there is not enough research on them.”
B.A.T.S. will host more community events, such as Fall Bat Week, to get students and guests interested in these native species. Eventually, the club plans to host talks at different high schools and middle schools to get students interested in bats and conservation of Southern California fauna.
Featured image courtesy of Christopher Pineda
