Hundreds of organizations in Wisconsin rely on volunteers to collect data about the health and distribution of wildlife, plant species and water quality, and a local man was one of dozens selected to carry out citizen-based monitoring efforts to observe Wisconsin’s bat population.
Joel Knutson of Rhinelander was awarded a $5,000 grant from the DNR to survey, monitor and train the next generation of bat enthusiasts in Oneida, Vilas, Forest and Langlade counties. Knutson’s award is a share of a $100,000 grant given to nearly two dozen other projects, organizations and local governments around the state. He says his study will focus on sweet spots for existing roosts, but also the possible factors of what’s causing the bat populations to be on the down-swing…
“…we know that white-nose syndrome has been found in some hibernacula North of here in Iron County and the U.P. as well as South of here and all of the bats that we have here in Oneida and Vilas and Langlade in particular are migrators, so it’s also true that there’s year-to-year fluctuations, we had a lot of really strange weather cycles come through during the roosting cycles in May and June, so that could have had an impact as well...”
Knutson says bats could also be facing a population crash, and says his grant money will go towards outreach and habitat restoration…
“…kids in particular are really exciting because in a lot of cases they’re going to wind up being braver than their parents, and when kids are exposed to a lot of the story of bats and where they live and their life stories they find it really fascinating, so we’ve been really lucky that local schools have been really cooperative and get really strong partnerships going to get kids involved with building bat houses themselves…”
Knutson is in collaboration with Vilas County Land and Water Conservation and the Discovery Center in Manitowish Waters who host monitoring sites for little and big brown bats.
For more information about Knutson’s or other citizen based monitoring projects visit the DNR’s website.
