Money approved for acoustic bat monitoring program

DES MOINES — The Iowa Natural Resources Commission has approved funding for another year of a program to monitor bats.

The DNR’s Kelly Poole says the program this summer will monitor bat sounds to track them and inventory their numbers.
as part of their effort against white nose syndrome, which is a disease that kills thousands of bats.

She says the monitoring is something they have done since 2013.  “Iowa State University will be coordinating our community science program to actually collect the data. They’ll be processing the data and they’ll be submitting it to the North American bat monitoring program, which is a requirement of this grant,” Poole says.

She says they anticipate using some 35 to 40 volunteers to run routes in the state to track the bats. “The information is important to us because it’s part of our the DNR’S white nose response plan,” Poole says.

The contract for the monitoring says the costs are not to exceed $27,000.