Day 81: When our Park biologist put out a call for volunteers to make 600 bags in which to temporarily hold bats, I conferred with our former campground host and she agreed to provide the materials for 100 bags if I would construct them. Now, 507 bags later, I can say I am officially done with my portion of the project. Those remaining 93 are going to have to come from somewhere else. (The photo shows about a third of the total.)
Why subject the poor bats to being bagged? The biologist will be taking blood samples to test for White-Nose Syndrome, a fungal disease which is devastating bat populations across the country. Although White-Nose exhibits obvious outward symptoms, other diseases manifest in much the same way so that it is impossible to say for sure that a bat is infected just by looking at it, hence the requirement of more elaborate tests. Capturing bats is best done when they are torpid (a state of semi-hibernation), but even when groggy, they respond to intrusion by leaping into flight. The plan is to mist-net them en masse, and then each individual bat will be tucked into a bag and hung up somewhere handy to await testing and subsequent release. The bags cannot be reused without washing between specimens due to risk of cross-contamination, thus the need for so many bags.
What went into the project? Well, here are the final statistics:
156 yards of 36" muslin (100% cotton)
296 yards of grosgrain ribbon for ties
22 250-400 yard spools of thread
125 hours of volunteer labour at the sewing machine
The bags have been washed and are ready for their first use, but I'm thinking that if even the slightest trace of my scent lingers in them, every bat in the Park is going to mark me as a guano target.
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