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		The Nature Conservancy in Washington Washington Home Donate Now Places We Protect Volunteer Ways of Giving WA's Next Generation News Room About Washington Contact Us Washington Wildlands Magazine

Sonogram samples SonoBat shows us sound bites for the for the small-footed myotis and the spotted bat.

Moses Coulee is the hot spot for bats in Washington state, home to 14 of the 15 native species of bats. Of all those bats, only the spotted bat makes an echolocation call that human ears can hear. Now, Nature Conservancy scientists and volunteers have a new tool to enable them to learn more about both the spotted bats and others whose call is in a pitch too high to be audible.

 
New audio equipment allows us to capture the calls the bats are making and run them through some sophisticated computer analysis developed by a company called SonoBat to give us sonograms and sound bites for the other species that are out there, such as the small-footed myotis or Townsend’s big-eared bat.

 

The images accompanying this show a sonogram for three different spotted bats recorded at Moses Coulee in August, along with the sonogram for a small-footed myotis recorded on the same evening.

 

TNC researcher, Kate Warner, tells the story:

 

Fourth Year for the Bat Survey

 

You can help! 

We’re hoping to learn answers to some basic questions about the Moses Coulee bats, said Chuck Warner, Moses Coulee Conservation Area program director. The Conservancy is hoping to learn more about the size of the population, and whether it’s a sustainable population. The Conservancy wants to learn where the maternal colonoies are located, so they can be protected from disturbance. We know that all the species of bats are insectivorous, but we don’t know exactly which insects they eat. We want to learn where the bats hibernate so that they can be protected from disturbances‑repeated waking during the hibernation period can lead a bat to consume too much energy and starve.

 

If you’d like to help answer some of these bat questions, volunteer to help with the next bat survey, on September 7, 8, and 9, 2007. Find out more on our volunteer page.

photo credits: Chuck Warner/TNC

The Nature Conservancy continues with traditional monitoring methods as well. On that cloudless, moonless, starry night in August, about two dozen volunteers were stationed up and down the coulee to listen for the spotted bat and count how many they heard, how long they could hear their call, and determine which direction the bats were flying. This is the fourth year that the Conservancy has conducted listening surveys for the spotted bat.