NABat Bulk Upload Template Updates
Significant upgrades are coming to the NABat bulk upload templates. Be on the lookout for a meeting invite to May's Community of Practice call and make sure you tune in. We'll unveil these changes in detail and provide some background on the effort. If you can't join us, video recordings will be made available at nabatmonitoring.org/quicklinks.
Upload template changes will roll out over the coming months and will include improved survey metadata definitions, clearer guidelines on required data, NEW data fields and templates, and more!
Call for Proposals - Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is seeking grant proposals from applicants interested in conducting projects that will benefit some of Washington’s most imperiled wildlife. The Wildlife Diversity Grant Program aims to support recovery actions for a suite of Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) that are state-listed or candidates for listing. Grant funding can also be awarded for projects aimed at collecting data and information on species abundance, distribution, and habitat associations with priority for those whose habitats are under significant threat of incompatible development, land use, or resource management.
The bat species that are being prioritized for this funding cycle include the Townsend’s big-eared bat, Keen’s myotis and other Myotis species. For additional information, please visit the Wildlife Diversity Grant Program Wildlife Diversity Grant Program | Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.
Interior Department Proposes Second Offshore Wind Sale in Gulf of Mexico
The Department of the Interior announced its proposal for a second offshore wind energy auction in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed lease sale includes four areas offshore Louisiana and Texas, totaling 410,060 acres, which have the potential to power 1.2 million homes.
Biden-Harris Administration Approves 7th and 8th Offshore Wind Projects
The Biden-Harris administration announced the Department of the Interior’s approval of the Sunrise Wind offshore wind project and the New England Wind offshore wind project – the nation’s seventh and eighth approvals of a commercial-scale offshore wind projects under President Biden’s leadership.
BOEM Seeks Public Comments
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking public comments on its:
Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Assessment for offshore wind activities in the Gulf of Maine (due 17 April 2024);
NOI to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for a proposed offshore wind energy project offshore New Jersey (due 2 May 2024);
NOI to prepare an EIS for the proposed Vineyard Northeast Offshore Wind Energy Project (due 9 May 2024); and its,
Proposed offshore wind energy auction in the Gulf of Mexico (due 20 May 2024).
Call for Proposals - North American Society for Bat Research
The 52nd Annual NASBR will be held in Guadalajara, Jalisco between 23-26 October 2024 and the local organizing committee and NASBR are calling for workshop and symposium proposals. Either one can be proposed by individuals or groups of up to three organizers. Deadline for submissions is May 15th, 2024.
ConferencesJuly 16-19, 2024: State of the Science on Offshore Wind Energy, Wildlife, and Fisheries, Long Island, New York, USA
September 8-11, 2024: Northeastern Transportation and Wildlife Conference, Mystic, CT, USA
September 22-25, 2024: Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Annual Meeting, Maddison, Wisconsin, USA
October 23-26, 2024: North American Society for Bat Research Annual Conference, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
November 12-15, 2024: Wind Wildlife Research Meeting, Corpus Christi, Texas, USA
EventsMay 7-9, 2024: Alabama Bat Working Group Bat Blitz, Scottsboro, Alabama, USA
WebinarApril 25, 2024: Going to Bat for Bioacoustics, hosted by Wildlife Acoustics and BCI
May 7-9, 2024: NABat Summit, Virtual Meeting Option
The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) Central Coordinating Office at the USGS Fort Collins Science Center is hosting a hybrid meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado this May. A lot has happened in the 8.5 years since “A Plan for the North American Bat Monitoring Program” was published and the 4.5 years since the NABat Partner Portal was launched. Efforts leading up to this point – where we have now amassed nearly 100 million records – have been focused on standing up the program. Now it is time to pivot focus towards strategic growth and improvement.
We sincerely value input and participation from our partners and hope you are able to join us. Due to space constraints, we are unable to extend an open invitation for in-person participation. We did our best to reflect the diversity of our partnering organizations and various partner roles in the list of invited in-person participants. This included working through the boards/executive committees of the regional bat working groups to solicit balanced representation. We are pleased to offer a remote option to all of our partners for portions of the meeting suitable for a hybrid format.
You are invited to join these sessions remotely with the link provided below. We will do our best to keep the meeting on time and ask for your patience with us if we get behind.
Please see the agenda in the April special edition NABat Newsletter.
Join the meeting nowMeeting ID: 274 180 045 141Passcode: eAus83
Dial-in by phone+1 202-640-1187,,18127152# United States, Washington DC
Find a local numberPhone conference ID: 181 271 52#
Check out the NABat Events page for a complete list of training webinars, meeting links, and all other upcoming events!
Post-doctoral Research Associate
The Missouri Department of Conservation is seeking a post-doctoral research associate for a funded project to understand how federally endangered Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis) respond to forest management practices employed in state-managed conservation areas in northeastern Missouri. This study is testing the hypothesis that low-intensity forest management creates more roosting and foraging opportunities for Indiana bats, yielding benefits to individuals and subpopulations. The project has been ongoing since 2019, yielding a rich dataset on individuals and subpopulations of Indiana bats and three other species that are routinely captured. The postdoc will be supervised by Dr. Joy O’Keefe in the Human-Wildlife Interactions lab at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
To learn more about this position, click here.
Mammal Sampling Technicians
The Alabama Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit at Auburn University is seeking Mammal Sampling Technicians (8) for a multi-species inventory and conservation project on selected state-owned lands within Alabama. Primary responsibilities will include conducting small mammal live trapping using Sherman traps, deployment/pick up of camera traps and Anabat detectors, and vegetation sampling. Other duties will include data entry, memory card downloading/organization, and maintenance of field equipment and vehicles. Candidates must be prepared and able to work under challenging environmental conditions, which include exposure to elements such as heat, humidity, and the presence of wildlife and insects.
To learn more about this position, click here.
Code Vignette for Occupancy Model
U.S. Geological Survey Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center staff have released a code vignette for application of a Bayesian single-season, single-species occupancy model for assessing silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) occurrence in Oregon and Washington. The vignette provides a walkthrough of reproducible code for applying the single-season occupancy model to bat occupancy data, as well as code and guidance for evaluating model fit and interpreting results of the fitted model.
To view this software release, click here. For more information, please contact Kathi Irvine, Research Statistician, kirvine@usgs.gov.
