What got you into bats or brought you to WEST? While I was getting my undergraduate degree, one of my professors bought some bat detectors and didn’t know how to use them. She asked me to figure them out and work with the Wisconsin DNR on their monitoring project as part of a semester project. I enjoyed it, so stayed on to complete a master’s degree with the detectors, and then worked for the WI DNR prior to starting in consulting.
What do you love most about your job? I love getting to work with other bat biologists as we learn and grow from our experiences with each other. All our bat biologists have had different experiences in their bat work, so we have a veritable fount of bat knowledge here at WEST that I haven’t seen at any of the other consulting firms I’ve worked at.
What is your favorite bat fact? The lesser fishing bat (lesser bulldog bat; Noctilio albiventris) in Central America has tuned its sonar so well that it can tell when prey insects are near or on the surface of the water.