With a fun name like acoustic monitoring...

Collin Mulloy rests a moment while the active monitor records bat calls

Northern Long Eared Bats like many other bats rely greatly on echolocation to find there way through the forest at night.  Within a fraction of a second a bat will make several calls that are mostly inaudible to humans.  As the sound waves bounce off objects and returns to the bats ears the difference in what the left ear from what the right ear hears helps the bat determine the position of an object.  The Northern Long Eared bat is extraordinarily good at echo locating and is able to grab an insect while the insect is in mid flight.

So to detect the Northern Long Eared Bat we set up powerful ultrasonic microphones in remote forested areas of the park.  In the office we look at the sound files with software that helps us visualize the bat call and then we try to determine the species that made the call.  This is a challenging step because there are over 1,000 species of bats and several bats have similar looking calls.  Luckily we have a program that isn't too bad at identifying certain bat calls. While the program is often wrong, it narrows down the calls that are likely to be Northern Long Eared Bats.

Kelly Bufkin with a backpack full of gear heading up the mountain to set up a mic

Linque Martin feeling pretty good after reaching the peak!