USA-NPN helps long-term management of lesser long-nosed bats

The lesser long-nosed bat has recently been removed from the endangered species list by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The population has recovered from a low of fewer than 1000 bats to the current estimate of over 200,000 individuals. The successful recovery is the result of efforts from various organizations and individuals, including Mexican agave growers, state and federal agencies, and citizen scientists. One organization that has helped the bat's recovery is the USA National Phenology Network, housed within SNRE. Their Flowers for Bats campaign relies on citizen scientist observations of flowers important to the nectar-feeding lesser long-nosed bats. According to Erin Posthumus, the outreach coordinator for USA-NPN, these observations will help USA-NPN continue to the monitoring and management of the lesser long-nosed bat population. Also involved in the effort is Sierra Frydenlund, an undergraduate student in SNRE who is using datasets from Flowers for Bats and other sources such as the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, to understand how the flowering of the bats' food sources changes over time. Her work has potential to help the successful management of the bats in the future.

Learn more about the project at UANews.

Lesser long-nosed bat by USDA is licensed under CC-BY NC 2.0