The Bat Crew

Last week a new volunteer joined our batty pursuit. Her name is Kirsten and she's from Austria. She works at a national park doing environmental education programs like I did at Blandy.


From left to right: Carrie, Kerry, Kirsten, and Matt. That's the company 'ute' (aka truck) that we use to get around the forest.

We've been out mist netting for five nights now and haven't caught another bat yet. Hopefully soon! Last night I dreamt we recaptured Bernie in a harp trap. We don't really want to catch bernie again. We'd really like to catch a female because they are likely to be roosting with other females instead of alone like Bernie the Bachelor.

We took Friday night off to attend the forest company's Christmas party. It was pretty awesome that we got invited because we're just volunteers. It was at a venue in Rotorua, which is a major tourism town for the North Island because of its thermal pools, geysers, and Maori culture. We took a gondola up a hill overlooking the town of Rotorua and Lake Rotorua. Unfortunately, it was raining so we didn't have a very good view.



Once we got to the top, we had to LUGE halfway back down to the dinner location! This was such a blast. You sit in a little cart and roll down the hill on a paved track. We only had time to do it twice and it was raining both times so we didn't get any pictures of us on the luge :-(

The rest of the Christmas party consisted of dinner, drinks, and dancing. It was awesome to watch all the people out on the dance floor. Actually, it really made me miss Earlham! We only knew about 4 of the 200 people at this place so it wasn't quite the same as a rockin party on College Ave where you know everyone except the first years who just showed up. The uninvited guest at this party was a possum who wandered his way into the food tent around 9:30 when dinner was finished and the dance floor was heating up. We got the impression he'd done this before.



Possums were introduced to New Zealand from Australia and have become a major pest. There are approximately 4 million New Zealanders, 40 million sheep, and 70 million possums. The possums love to eat the native flora and fauna. They are trapped and poisoned, but they persist. I think this might be one of the only places in the world where swerving to HIT a mammal crossing the road is socially acceptable. Remember, their only native land mammals are bats, so all the rabbits, hares, possums, weasels, and deer are introduced (supposedly there are even some moose on the South Island. Imagine that- introducing and losing your MOOSE in the bush). I am amazed at how many possums we see driving along the forestry roads at night. We can hear them, too, while we're sitting around waiting to catch bats. They can make very unsettling sounds when you're sitting alone at night in the bush. I was totally surprised to see 'merino wool and possum fur' products all over the place when we arrived in Christchurch. The possum has beautiful, warm fur that they blend with merino wool to make gloves, socks, sweaters, scarves, and the like. Or they just skin the possums and make fur products like slippers and hats. New Zealanders would really like their 'fur for conservation' to catch on internationally. Ironically, the possum is threatened in its native Australia.

Tonight we'll try again for bats. Cross your fingers!

Carrie

P.S. We're really enjoying seeing where our blog visitors come from. We think we've got most of the locations figured out. Since we put up the little city counter on Friday it looks like there are lots of people from the forestry company (who show up as Auckland), my parents, Sarah K., Megan K.?, Cathi, Coco, Rusty & Wal?, and Adam.