A Roving 'Batmobile' Is Helping Map Alaska's Bats

Petersburg, Alaska, at sunset. Credit: Vilmos Varga / Shutterstock One evening last month, library technician Chris Weiss could be seen prowling the streets of Petersburg, Alaska, in her batmobile. She didn’t attract any special attention; the light blue Subaru blended right in. But the sensitive microphone on the roof and the bright yellow box inside the car gave her the power to hear sounds outside of human hearing – bat calls. Weiss is part of a network of citizen scientists tallying the bats of southeastern Alaska through an Alaska Fish and Game Department project. The research is showing what a healthy bat population in the region looks like – important data on its own, but vital information if disease ultimately strikes Alaska’s bats as it has bats in the contiguous U.S.