Category

Mexican Free-tailed Bat

The Mexican free-tailed bat is a creature well-known in Austin for its immense maternal colony found under the Congress Avenue bridge in the city’s downtown, popular with tourists and lethal to flying insects.

Interviews

Narrator: J. David BambergerTitle: ChiroptoriumDuration: 00:01:55Date: June 17, 1999J. David Bamberger is the founder of Selah, the Bamberger Ranch Preserve near Johnson City, Texas. He organized construction of an artificial cave to house Mexican Free-tailed Bats, as both a way to mitigate habitat loss and to help the non-invasive study of bats.Narrator: Susan HughesTitle: Bracken CaveDuration: 00:01:24Date: February 17, 2006Susan Hughes, a leader in the national and local Audubon community, a co-founder of the Master Naturalist program, and a former trustee of the Edwards Aquifer Authority, remembers the joy of seeing an emergence of bats from the huge maternal colony at Bracken Cave.Narrator: Lee MackenzieTitle: Wind TurbinesDuration: 00:02:38Date: August 30, 2020Lee Mackenzie is a director of the Austin Bat Refuge, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting, rehabilitating, studying, and promoting better understanding of and co-existence with bats. Here he describes both the need for wind energy, to help mitigate climate change, and also the pressure to protect the millions of bats that are killed in the turbines.Narrator: Lee MackenzieTitle: Concrete Box BeamDuration: 00:03:16Date: August 30, 2020Lee Mackenzie is a director of the Austin Bat Refuge, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting, rehabilitating, studying, and promoting better understanding of and co-existence with bats. Here he discusses the Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin, which hosts the largest urban bat colony in the world.Narrator: Dianne OdegardTitle: White Nose SyndromeDuration: 00:03:33Date: August 31, 2020Dianne Odegard, executive director and co-founder of the non-profit group, Austin Bat Refuge, is a wildlife rehabilitator who has worked on protecting, researching, and healing bats, and promoting better understanding of and co-existence with bats. Here she talks about the challenge of white nose syndrome, a fungal disease recently arrived in Texas that has decimated many bat species, although fortunately not the Mexican free-tailed bat as yet.Narrator: Merlin TuttleTitle: Allies in AustinDuration: 00:03:39Date: February 23, 2008Merlin Tuttle is an ecologist, bat biologist, educator, photographer, and the founder of Bat Conservation International. Here he talks about the effort to educate the public about understanding and appreciating bats.Narrator: Janet TyburecTitle: Line of DefenseDuration: 00:03:42Date: November 14, 2022Janet Tyburec has been involved in bat research, conservation, and education work since the 1980s. Here she describes the survey work that revealed the valuable role of Mexican free-tailed bats in controlling major agricultural pests.