Bud Werner Memorial Library

2012 is the Year of the Bat!  Visit  Bracken Bat Cave via a BatsLIVE webcast -- an electronic field trip with local bat expert Apple Snider, who will be here live in Library Hall to share more information and answer all your questions. 

Bracken Bat Cave is the summer home of the world's largest bat colony. With millions of Mexican free-tailed bats living in the cave from March thru October, Bracken holds one of the largest concentration of mammals on earth. The emergence of these millions of bats, as they spiral out of the cave at dusk for their nightly insect hunt, is an unforgettable sight. The cave and 697 acres of the surrounding Texas Hill Country is owned and protected by Bat Conservation International.

Bats are vital to healthy ecosystems and human economies worldwide, yet these wonderfully diverse and beneficial creatures are among the least studied and most misunderstood of animals. Bats are threatened worldwide, because of myths, misinformation, and lack of scientific knowledge and understanding. Bat populations are declining almost everywhere in North America especially due to the devastating White-nose Syndrome. Losing bats has far-reaching consequences for natural ecosystems and human economies, and knowledge is the key to their conservation and protection.

Learn all about bats, and what you can do to help!

Apple Snider is a wildlife biologist with the USDA Forest Service in Steamboat Springs. She holds a bachelor's degree in environmental studies from Middlebury College, and master's degree in ecology from Colorado State University where she studied bat roosting ecology and food habits at Mesa Verde National Park. Apple has worked with bats and other wildlife for over 15 years. Her passion for bat ecology and conservation has led her to work as an animal care and education specialist for the Organization for Bat Conservation in Michigan and on bat-related field research projects in Colorado, New Mexico, New York and Panama.

BatsLIVE: A Distance Learning Adventure is being brought to you by the following partners: USDA Forest Service, Prince William Network, Partners in Resource Education, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Bat Conservation International, Lubee Bat Conservancy, National Environmental  Education Foundation, Bureau of Land Management, Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Organization for Bat Conservation, National Park Service, National Wildlife Federation, Project Underground, UN Year of the Bat, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, Project Underground, Midwest Bat Working Group, Wildlife Conservation and Education Center, and Eurobats.