The Science and Stewardship staff have continued to delve deeper and deeper into the Northern long-eared Bat world on Nantucket!

This season, we added a new member to our bat crew! Neil Foley, our long-time Coatue Ranger and Shorebird Monitor, got his rabies vaccination, and with all of his experience removing birds from mist-nets, easily transitioned into removing our small, winged nocturnal mammal friends from nets!

This spring and summer, we captured over 60 adult and juvenile bats on Nantucket. The wing and muzzle of each captured bat were swabbed lightly with a q-tip. Those samples were sent to a lab in Northern Arizona to test for the fungus that causes to White-nose Syndrome, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, was present on Nantucket bats. Thankfully, all our samples returned negative and our bats appeared to come out of hibernation healthy!  READ MORE…