Really in Bats? You Need This Bat-Locator App
Bats are extremely poorly understood. Maybe it’s because they are not nice, or because they are nocturnal and we don’t see them very often, or, as “citizen scientist” Daniel Gustafson says in a Bloomberg report on the new bat app, because they are simply not I have good public relations in pop culture.
But there are people who really like bats, like Gustafson, who sits on the board of Bat Conservation International and – full disclosure – is a friend of mine. My seven-year-old son is inexplicably crazy about bats, and Gustafson gave him a subscription to BCI magazine, which I call Bat Fancy, but in reality his name is simply Bats .
Bats are an important part of the ecosystem, and they should be studied, but for one reason or another there are not enough scientists; Scientists in general are at gunpoint – collecting data on bats is largely left to “civic scientists” like Gustafson and the hobbyists she leads on evening walks with bats in Central Park. “Bats face many threats – habitat loss, wind turbines, and perhaps the biggest threat – misunderstanding and irrational fear. Bats are wonderful creatures, they need our help, ”says Gustafson.
Wildlife Acoustics, which makes an app that helps bird watchers identify bird songs, has developed a new app to help bat lovers locate bats by changing their echolocation frequency so that they can be heard on an iPhone or Android. Civil scientists can use the app to help them find bats, and Daniel and Bat Conservation International hope to soon create a publicly available database to store and collate data collected on bat populations.
The app is free , but the $ 179 hardware is a little expensive for my son. Until then, we’ll have to rely on Gustafson’s bat app when walking with the bat – as soon as my son is allowed to stay up that late.