After a break of several years, in 2008 our bat group decided to carry out the XII- Bat Night in Sofia. Having some modest funding from the project “Bats and Environmental Impact Assessment” which has taken place in Bulgaria and Romania, we asked several potential donors for additional funds. Finally we got 200 copies of the newest “NG Kids” Magazine plus 10 subscriptions for 2009. A collection of nice books on animals from the chain of stores “Knigomania” were added to the prize’s collection for the event.

Sofia Zoo kindly accepted to host the Bat Night in a semi-dark hall with large carnivores and terrariums. We widely announced in the press and in all electronic media that the event would take place in the Zoo on 6th September 2008 beginning at 19:00 h.

The Bat Night 2008 started at 18:30 h when countless kids, pupils, parents and students started to crowd in front of the bat’s hall. Each of the guests took a kit with materials on bats and all kids received the newest “NG Kids” magazine. All children were asked to draw a bat on a clipboard what they think these animals look like. Every “painter” received a dark brown bat cookie, especially produced by a confectionery.

After the hall got nearly full with visitors, journalists and cameras (more than 250 people were in!) the director of the Sofia Zoo and the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) opened the Bat Night. Antonia Hubancheva from the Bat Research and Conservation Center at the NMNH continued with a PowerPoint presentation “Bats- who are they?”. After this, Nikolay Simov briefly showed to the public how to make a wooden bat-box and invited all interested visitors to help him constructing several boxes at the tables nearby. Boyan Petrov carried out a quiz with 10 questions on bat’s life and biology. Each correct answer was rewarded with an interesting book as a price. Then the winner of the bat painting competition was selected by a jury and got the album “How to draw wild animals”.

Meanwhile dusk started and we all went out to show the release of a female Nathusius’ pipistrelle, which our team saved from a room at the Sofia airport the day before. It was already dark when we all went to a nearby lake, where tens of Noctules, Common pipistrelles, Savi’s pipistrelles and some other species were actively foraging. All visitors remained happy to tune and listen at one of the few bat detectors which we had. The event ended at about 21:00 h, which was the first and I believe not the last exception for the extra working time of Sofia Zoo ;-))).

In result, the Bat Night 2008 was widely announced and fully covered by several TV stations and some interviews appeared in the press during the next days. In September and October, the Bat Research and Conservation Center at the NMNH received at least 15 calls from people who had a bat in trouble. We managed to cover the most urgent cases and saved/released 5 Pipistrellus pipistrellus, 1 P. nathusii, 1 Hypsugo savii and 3 Vespertilio murinus. Finally, a short paper covering the celebration of the bat night appeared in the November issue of the popular magazine “National Geographic- Bulgaria”.

Sofia, 16.11.2008