amount of legal protection, but prob- 

 ably the primary benefit of the Cat- 

 egory 2 listing is that it gets the word 

 out that biologists need to start looking 

 at the needs of this bat or to initiate 

 surveys for this bat." 



Each state can craft its own laws to 

 safeguard native plants and animals 

 beyond the federal protections. The 

 eastern big-eared 

 bat has benefited 

 from this recogni- 

 tion, though piece- 

 meal, throughout its 

 range. Every state it 

 lives in has listed 

 the bat in some cat- 

 egory of concern. 



In North Caro- 

 lina, the big-eared 

 bat and other 

 nongame species 

 are protected by the 

 1987 N.C. 

 Nongame Act. This 

 law makes it illegal 

 to take, collect, pos- 

 sess or kill certain 

 nongame species 

 without a permit, 

 which is usually 

 issued for research 

 or education, says 

 Randall Wilson, 

 section manager for 

 the Division of 

 Wildlife Resources' 

 Nongame and En- 

 dangered Wildlife 

 Program. This pro- 

 gram also offers small grants that have 

 funded some of Clark's research in 

 North Carolina. 



To the north, Virginia took the step 

 of declaring the bat endangered in July 

 1987, making it illegal to harm or ha- 

 rass the bat or to modify its habitat to 

 the point that it will be harmed, says 

 Karen Terwilliger, a biologist for the 

 Virginia Department of Game and In- 

 land Fisheries. 



At the time, the bat was thought to 

 be on the brink of disappearing, if not 



already gone, from its historic home in 

 southeastern Virginia near the North 

 Carolina border. It had been sighted in 

 these forests only a few times in the 

 previous 100 years, Terwilliger says. 



Clark proved otherwise in 1993 

 with a survey of the region that found 

 24 new roosts with 56 bats. 



"Within those borders, they had so 



David Lee, N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences 



Researcher Mary Kay Clark inspects an abandoned "bat house" that is typical 

 of most roost sites chosen by eastern big-eared bats in the coastal plain. 



few records," she says. "It looked like 

 that bat wasn't even there anymore 

 because for about a century, they didn't 

 have any new records." 



But she knew, based on her North 

 Carolina research, that bats were prob- 

 ably more widespread in Virginia than 

 thought. Her efforts in both states 

 proved colonies existed, but their num- 

 bers were small. So the question re- 

 mains, are these small populations 

 north and south of the border stable or 

 declining? 



The answer, in part, lies in knowing 

 more about their tree-roosting habits. 

 Clark believes that mature forests are 

 critical roost sites for these bats, and she 

 wants to know how strong that connec- 

 tion is. She wants to know whether an 

 uncounted population is living in tree 

 cavities. 



The fact that only a handful of tree 

 roosts has been 

 found doesn't nec- 

 essarily mean that 

 the bats prefer 

 manmade struc- 

 tures, Clark says. 

 Colonies are simply 

 harder to find there. 

 And peering into 

 dark hollows with 

 mirrors and flash- 

 lights is a neck- 

 breaking way to 

 locate them. 



There is a bet- 

 ter way, called ra- 

 diotelemetry. Other 

 researchers have 

 successfully used 

 this technology to 

 study the habitat 

 needs of bats, and 

 Clark hopes to use it 

 this summer to find 

 more tree roosts. 



The technique 

 calls for gluing 

 transmitters onto 

 bats caught in mist 

 nets while they're 

 searching for food. 



For about 10 days, the transmitter gives 

 off a signal that researchers can trace to 

 the roost in the daytime and foraging 

 grounds at night. Then it falls off. 



"The goal is to learn more about 

 how they use the forest and to locate 

 more tree cavity roosts. With that 

 information, we can predict where 

 they may be and how developmental 

 pressures will affect populations of 

 tree-dependent species like the eastern 

 big-eared bat," Clark says. 



In the meantime, she will continue 



20 MARCH/APRIL 1994 



