Stewards of the Northwoods: Wisconsin Bat Festival 2014 in Milwaukee Was a Success!

By Licia Johnson, NLDC Staff Naturalist

“Every year, the Wisconsin Bat Program hosts a Wisconsin Bat Festival in conjunction with partners. The Festival is a globally relevant, engaging and important event to promote conservation of bats and ultimately, our environment. Bats are critical to ecosystems around the world and locally. Because these animals are often misunderstood and because multiple species are now threatened with extinction people should be encouraged to protect them. Through this message, citizens learn about the importance of being good stewards of the earth while inspiring children to become the next generation of researchers and biologists necessary to preserve the balance of our environment.” ~

Wisconsin Bat Program

Photo 1- Over 800 people came to the Urban Ecology Center on October 3^rd for the annual Wisconsin Bat Festival.

Photo 2- One of my jobs at the festival was educating folks in the live bat room. Here I am with Leon, one of the Discovery Center’s education bats- he was echo-locating, and we were able to hear it with the Anabat detector.

The 2014 WI Bat Festival reached over 1300 attendees over three days. It was hosted by the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee Wisconsin starting on October 3, 2014. This year, the Festival included not only the same great educational programs and activities as last year, but also a bat science symposium and a screening and discussion panel of the video Battle for Bats- Surviving white-nose syndrome.

Leon, Fritz (our two new male educational Big Brown Bats) and I attended and worked in the live education bat area-educating folks on big browns, fruit bats, and Jamaican leaf nosed bats. Over 100 individuals make this Festival happen each year. Presenters shared their stories and expertise, research and monitoring results with others. Science presentations this year covered a wide range of topics including rabies, white nose syndrome, acoustic monitoring, bats of Cuba and caves. We had great attendance in the Science Symposium! There were also activities including guano dissection, “what does a bat eat” activity, craft cave, and more. Attendees also had a chance to explore the blow up cave and learn to be a bat biologist with other fun activities. I was fortunate enough to take a turn being the mascot- “Stella Luna” (of the kids bat book) and met the first girl in the world to survive full-on rabies, Jeanna along with attending her interview with WPR’s Judith Siers-Poisson- discussing her journey with the disease. It was a great weekend filled with bat education and celebration!