To help determine the impacts of the pandemic virus on North American bat populations, authors experimentally challenged big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) with SARS‐CoV‐2 under BSL‐3 conditions. They inoculated the bats both oropharyngeally and nasally, and over the ensuing three weeks we measured infectivity, pathology, virus concentrations in tissues, oral and rectal virus excretion, virus transmission, and clinical signs of disease.
A carcass of a male Pipistrellus nathusii ringed in Pape Natural Park on the Baltic coast (South Latvia) in August 2015 was recovered in Pitillas' Lagoon Natural Reserve (N Spain) in March 2017. At 2224 km in SSW direction, this is the first documented bat migration between these countries and the longest documented distance of a bat movement.
BCT pleased to announce that applications to the Kate Barlow award are now open – the closing date is 5pm GMT, 24th November 2020.
The Kate Barlow Award aims to encourage the next generation of bat researchers by providing a substantive contribution towards the research costs of a postgraduate student undertaking research that will benefit bat conservation, in honour of the late Dr Kate Barlow’s contribution to this field.
A new issue of Hypsugo, a periodical journal of bat research in Balkans, has recently been published, with PDF version available online on the website of the Center for Karst and Speleology at http://centarzakrs.ba/sismi
In Germany, wind parks cause a high number of casualties in bats, which can potentially lead to endangering the protected bat species.
Effective bat protection is, therefore, necessary for the implementation of an ecologically sustainable energy transition that considers the goals of both climate and biodiversity protection.
Plecotus gaisleri is among the last species to have been recognized among long-eared bats of the Mediterranean basin. The availability of unconfirmed records only had led Eurobats to exclude it from the latest checklist of European bat.
In September last year, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research circulated a questionnaire called 'Bat conservation and people - a cross-cultural survey' in order to gain a better understanding about what the bat community thinks and feels about bats and stakeholders involved in their conservation across the world. With the COVID-19 pandemic the situation has surely changed a lot and we would be interested to see where we stand today as bat experts.
Unfortunately we have now been forced to come to the conclusion that we have to postpone the
15th European Bat Research Symposium until next year, because of the the current COVID-19 -situation. Even if the borders would re-open in time for the meeting, we fear there may still be restrictions in place, which could affect our meeting. We believe this decision is in the best interest of the health and safety of all participants.
We have new dates set for next year, so please write these down in your calendars: 2-6 August 2021