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Europe there are a surprising number of local and national
organisations either partly or totally devoted to the protection
of bats and their environment. Many of them organise events
to improve public awareness of bats and their problems. They
also visit people who have bats in their homes or outbuildings,
or even in churches, to dispel myths and to enable statutory
nature-conservation bodies to provide advice.
There are also numerous bat-box schemes which have been
piloted by local groups, many of which have been carried
forward by national or local nature-conservation authorities.
They also record distribution and changes in population
and its behaviour, and take in sick, injured or orphaned
bats to release them back into the wild.
You don’t have to be a scientist or biologist to
get involved in bat conservation. But it can be informative
and great fun to become involved in groups, where the activity
takes place outdoors, and often at night!
All you have to do is to contact your local or national
bat-conservation group. If you do not know any such group
in your area, and your local nature-conservation authorities
cannot help either, then you can contact us at the EUROBATS
Secretariat, and we can try to find out the nearest group
to you, or to put you in touch with other experienced bat
groups who are not so close....it might mean you have the
opportunity of setting up a local bat group yourself!
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