Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats: Urban Ecology, Community Science, and How We Share Our Cities

Chasing Bats and Tracking Rats: Urban Ecology, Community Science, and How We Share Our Cities — page 9
Who’s afraid of a big brown bat The park is closed What are you still doing here Pausing I looked up at the large grumpy police officer standing in front of the picnic table I was sitting at Around me were a number of strange items test tubes for storing samples a margarine container full of measuring tapes a pile of tiny felt bags and a kitchen scale Beside me sat Krista my bat catching catching partner in crime She and I were now several hours into processing the 25 bats we had caught in the chimney of a nearby house I sighed It was one o’clock in the morning and it had already been a very long night Earlier that evening Krista had climbed a ladder and dangled herself and our roost trap over the side of a four story home After searching all summer we’d finally found our first bat colony in a neighborhood filled with large old houses and trees just a few blocks away from High Park The people living there had given us permission to climb on the roof that night TOOLS OF THE TRADE Usually I use mist nets to catch bats while they are out flying at night Mist nets are like big fine mesh fishing nets that we put high up in the air between two poles These nets are split into sections called tiers with baggy pockets at the bottom Unsuspecting bats fly into these nets and get tangled in those pockets Before starting my processing I carefully untangle them making sure they aren’t hurt When we need to catch bats in areas where there are too many trees or the ground is too hard to put up a mist net we use harp traps instead Harp traps are made of a big metal square with fishing line looped around it Bats try to fly through the fishing line get caught and then fall into a bag at the bottom The roost trap Krista used to catch bats as they left the chimney for the night was a lighter and smaller version of a harp trap But the easiest way to catch a bat is when they’re roosting in an area that we can get into like a cave or an attic Then we can just go up with a gloved hand and pick them off the walls 8