[00:00:00] Speaker A: Bats are often misunderstood and feared creatures.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: But they play a vital role in.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Ecosystems around the world.
From pollinating plants to controlling insect populations, these fascinating mammals deserve our appreciation and protection.
Welcome back to Rewadology, the nature podcast that explores the human side of conservation, travel, and rewilding the planet. I'm your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation biologist and adventure traveler.
April 17 is Bat Appreciation Day, and to celebrate, we're releasing this special minisode to share with you Iro Rotanshi's incredible story about rediscovering the short tailed roundleaf bat in her home country of Nigeria.
We rarely have the opportunity to find a lost species, and sometimes magical moments like this one come to us.
If you'd like to hear Aurora's full story, including her journey into bat research, engaging local communities in bat conservation, launching her NGO, small mammal conservation organization, and lots and lots of laughs, scroll through the archives and check out episode 36.
Dont forget to submit your photos for Rewildologys 2024 Earth Day contest. Our theme this year is thriving freshwater and marine ecosystems. To learn more about the contest and to submit your photos, check out the link in this episode's description or head on over to the website and click on the photo contest page under the resources tab.
All right, everyone, please enjoy this short and sweet bat tastic minisode with eroro.
So then, so then how did, how did your work in Nigeria start then? Like, what was the question that even led you back there? Because it sounds like you were really in depth on these other countries and studying bats in other places of the world. So what brought you back to your home country? And, like, what was the question you asked? And, and, of course, this might be a good introduction to how you found your, the short tailed roundleaf bat. So, yeah, how did, how did all of that come to be?
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Okay, I really like that question because I haven't thought about it that way, where, you know, it's like you go to these different countries and doing bad stuff or getting inspired by war from other countries. But. So I'd already mentioned that there's very limited expertise, right. And to a certain extent, I've been quite passionate about helping to improve the capacity in country and, you know, just evidence, like basic scientific evidence for, you know, general ecology and, of course, bio ecology. So it wasn't even a question of whether I wanted to study or do my PhD in Nigeria. It was a question of what type of exciting question will it be, you know? So, in fact, that was in my original plan. Like I told my professor, I wanted. I wanted to. So this is what I was looking for. A professor who would work in the old world, right? I wanted to do my work in Nigeria. And that's kind of what she, you know, supports anyway. You know, she gets all these international students who want to go back home to do their fieldwork and, you know, so that's kind of that about going back home, but about the questions that then led me to discovering is that for the first time in Nigeria. So I started off trying to do, like, a cave project because, you know, again, you know, climbing trees, crawling in caves, doing all this stuff.
But the types of questions that I was interested in really needed a lot of caves across lots of habitats or, like, a really broad geographical extent, in my case, this. Okay, so this is the other part of the story, right? I also wanted to work in southeastern Nigeria on the border with Cameroon. Like, I think. I think I've been quite specific.
It's bats. It's Nigeria. It's southeastern Nigeria.
So because, you know, that's the. They've got the best forest in Nigeria. Like, that's the only place where you find primary forest, like, untouched forest left, you know, in Nigeria. And they're also quite. The local people are also quite sympathetic to conservation work in general because there are a lot of. It has the highest concentration of NGO's working on conservation for any part of the country, you know, so.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: Yeah. So it was like, this is heaven. This is Mecca. It's. And it's a biodiversity hotspot. Oh, my gosh. For bats. And I just automatic. It was like an automatic decision, you know, so. But the only snag there was my cave interest wasn't quite fitting in. So when we visited in 2014, December into January 2015, my first actually came out with me and we sort of started trying to find caves.
First of all, no one's done a cave project in the area, whether for bats or for any other taxa, so they were fairly undocumented, so to speak. So you got to find local people who know where the caves are and. And try to find those caves. And some of these caves are like a whole day apart. There's no way I was going to be able to really manage, like, a full scale project looking at caves for the types of questions I was interested in, too. So I ended up just saying, you know, my professor and I were just sat down thinking about what to do, and we were looking at this beautiful mountain landscape, and she was like, why don't you look at elevational grades? I was like, yeah, that sounds fun because, you know, again, it meant I will be mountaineering and, you know, just climbing all of these fun places and going to top ridges and whatnot. So that's kind of where that's set up from. So I sort of looked at the literature. There was a lot of cool stuff to be done, especially in the old world. So that's where it all came from. So my project became an ecological question about what communities are in the lowlands versus the highlands. You know, like, and how does that change as you go? What are the processes driving that? And, you know, mechanistic, stochastic, you know, that sort of questions, set of questions in community ecology. But then before I went out, I needed to know what species to expect.
Mind you, starting 2013, we. I was already pulling together, after an internship at the Harrison Institute in the UK, already pulling together a. In fact, I already had it at the time, a database of bats known from Nigeria. So every bat, every bat ever collected and reported in the literature or in museums, I had it on the database. So I kind of knew what bats we had, and I was already working on that. Internship gave rise to a bats of Nigeria project that we're already working on. So I kind of knew what bats we had and what we didn't have that you could expect to find on either side. So where Nigeria was a gap, so to speak.
So I made a list of bats that I could potentially find at my field sites, but on the basis of it being known from either side of Nigeria or it being known on the border with Cameroon, because Cameroon's been.
Cameroon has received quite a bit more research for bats versus Nigeria. But we share this exciting bite of us, the hotspot, you know, so it's almost, you know, intuitive to kind of expect that what you find across the border, you find on this side.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Absolutely. Because they don't know country lines.
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Exactly. So I kind of. I kind of, you know, had a list. I was looking out for stuff, but, you know, a number of these bads that I even had didn't really have a photograph out there. So you weren't sure what it was. So you were. You were just looking out for characteristics. It was like, oh, this one has got unusually large ears. Okay, that's. That's enough for me, you know? And then this one's gone, right? This was really fluffy and just slightly bigger than this, this other one. So that's kind of how I kept a mental note of what to expect. So on the 9th, we. We were collecting bats, and I put out this one bat, because, you know, you. You trap bat, and then you. You go to the trap, you pick up the bat and put it in the bag and move it to your processing station. And so when I opened the bag and took out the bat, I was like, wow, what are you. Because it has these really big ears, like, unusually large ears, and it had, like, it has, like, a, like a button for nose. It's like, the middle of the nose is slightly flattened, so it's, like, roundish flattened. It's like, oh, my gosh. This is so exciting. So I think I may have said a lot of things that night to my crew. Like, you have no idea what this means. This is about that hasn't been called, like, 45 years. This is just. I was just literally talking to myself and just being so completely carried away. And, oh, wow. I think they let me get on with it. Like, they were like, don't tarot. Cause I was sounding a bit crazy, I think.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Let her get it out. Let her get it out.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: You know? And so that was quite something to have seen that species at that time. Yeah. But, of course, ten days later, we were running away from fire.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So tell me about that. So, like, you had this euphoria moment. You're like, oh, my God.
[00:10:21] Speaker C: I know.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Here is this bat that had, like you said, that hasn't been seen in 45 years. It is in my hand. Oh, my God. This is history.
[00:10:30] Speaker C: Literally.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: We're making history right now. Yes. Then what happened ten days later? What realization came at that moment?
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Right. So the time we collected, the first individual we collected that I was basically going crazy about was in the lowlands. And so we spent maybe four days at the site. I think it must have been on the third day we caught that individual. So by the fourth day, we were done, and we started moving up to the next point on the elevation. So basically what I was doing, my project was I start off at the bottom, four or five days of trapping, and then I moved to the next stratum, which would be about maybe 300 meters elevation, you know, difference from where I was coming from, or 250 ish. So at this point, I was already now in the mountains at about 400 meters elevation. And for mountain that's steep, it's got some gentriceptions, but it's quite a steep mountain. It's not a. It's not an easy thing to navigate. Okay. Especially at night. Oh, we're just lucky to have, like, a small tableland somewhere where we could set up our camp and then set up traps so we're just out trapping. It must have been the second and third day, and it was unusually windy and hot at the same time. Usually it's quite cool in the forest because, you know, it's foresty. A lot of the lights shoot it out, and a lot of the moisture has been trapped and kept kind of in place. So it's quite. It's not cool cold. It's, like, cool. It's, like, nice. It's not hot. Hot. It's not very bad. So this was. It felt like hot air and it was windy. We could tell it was windy because, you know, the canopy, the leaves were moving a lot, but then just about when darkness hits, we started seeing from a distance that, you know, there was a ring, there was a line of fire, and it felt like it was moving towards us. I was like, oh, we have to move.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Oh, God.
[00:12:27] Speaker C: Anything can happen in the forest, especially in a mountain. It could. It could move in one direction and then find you and just trap you in the forest. I just. I could not even think of an alternative at the point, which was, you know, the only option was, let's get out of here and just save our lives, basically. But also, we had a volunteer at the time who was asthmatic, and so I was like, we have to get her out, you know. So we made. We quickly just got to camp, close the traps, got to camp, protected. How do we. So we kind of protected all of our food and stuff by just getting them together, covering them with blankets, wet the blankets in case the fire came through camp. And then we took all of our equipment that could not be replaced in country because. And it was quite a bit because everybody had something on their back that was quite heavy, and, in fact, someone had to carry something on their head. It was quite.
It was a mad rush to protect and save ourselves at the same time. So we kind of just made a run for it. And by the time we got to the village, it was almost must have been 01:00 or at least definitely past midnight at this point. By the time we were setting up tents in the village to sleep that night because we couldn't go into people's houses. It was just not fair, you know, to go bothering people at that time. And, you know, we hadn't realized that fire was a problem in this place, or at least as bad of a problem. So, yeah, so that night we got into the village, the nearest house. We just pitched our tent right behind in the backyard because there's no fencing. So we just got in camp there and just sort of try to be grateful that we were able to escape, so to speak. So that was within a space of less than two weeks. We went from, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. Like, we're so privileged, so happy, so just excited that we're, you know, in the field and finding this space. And then, oops, fire will destroy its habitat. You know, so I can't even begin to describe all of the emotions I felt. I think I went from being disappointed that, you know, we were going to lose a species habitat because you wouldn't even know how extensive the fire would get at this point. It had gotten out of hand. It had gotten beyond the level where local people could potentially stop it. Okay, so it was basically, there was a big trail up the, like a big line, long line up the mountain of just fire proceeding through the forest, you know, so I was quite terrified. But then, as you can imagine, I was also quite terrified that this is it. I don't. I no longer have a PhD project, you know, like, because again, this is the reason why I wanted to be at this site, right? To be in undisturbed forest. But luckily it stopped just about 200 meters of our, that camp that we had, because there was a stream. I know. My gosh, there was a stream coming down the mountain.
I know, I know, I know.
But it didn't stop immediately because we went into the village trying to talk to people. They were like, no, no one's going to care about fighting fires. The government has tried and few other NGO's have tried.
Just don't even bother. So. Well, we had to leave, first of all, to confer with my advisor and say, look, this is terrible. I don't know what to do. Talk to me, you know, give me hope, I guess. Cause I really did lose hope, I have to say. But I think we found a way around it, man.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, man, you're just, like, taking me through that emotional rollercoaster. I can't even. No, don't apologize. No, I'm just, like, putting myself in your shoes and I just can't even. I can't even fathom, like, what that had to have felt, like, well, one literal fear for your life, and then two, like, oh, my gosh, my academic career could be toast. And then three, what about this species that I just found?
What's going to happen to them and the rest of them?
Oh, my gosh. I would have drank a lot that night.
[00:16:53] Speaker C: Goodness.
And it's such an interesting species in the sense that it's like, do not even disturb it's. Like it needed. You know how you go into a hotel and you say, do not disturb? Put that sign up on your door or, you know, even at home, and you just say, do not. This is the species. This is that species that says do not disturb, you know? So I was just running through all the motions of, what are we gonna do if you say everybody else has tried to, you know, stop fires in the past and you're saying, we can't do anything about it, you're kind of. You're just taking away all of the potential for stuff. You've taken away all the hope or. Anyway, so it was quite an interesting and terrifying period, I have to say.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So then what was the next step? So I'm assuming, like, an action plan was made. So what did you do next to either combat this issue or find a way around it? Or did you move sites? So what did you do?
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Well, I did move sites. So I spoke with my advisor, and she was like, well, let's confer in a couple of days after, you know, you know, the condition of the fire, did this stop? Like, how far did it get? Blah, blah, blah. So we kind of conferred and, you know, after we didn't. We didn't go to investigate. I think I was really mad at the community people at this time. I was quite upset with them. So we didn't go back into the forest to see the extent, but our partners, who had so look through to see how far it got, came back and said, hey, stop short of your camp, and sort of told us how. How bad it was. But what I just meant was that camp was toast. There was no way we're going to keep working there. So we had to move, like, head more southwest where there was still good forest at that elevation and, you know, carried on surveying. But at this time, the field season was already, like, kind of not. Not really coming to an end, but I had run out of cash. Okay, so this is the. This is the really. I don't know if this. It's. If it's the same thing with other people doing work in the field because of the uncertainties of, you know, transportation and, you know, getting people to work with you, like local assistance and all that, because I usually have a big team. Okay.
You make a budget, for one thing, and then you get into the field, money just disappears, you know, it's like, what are we going to do? But the other thing is also, I think this was the second day of trapping at this site, and for you to make that journey to that site, it cost a lot of money. Okay? So I paid porters and, you know, field assistants to come work with us and, and we had to evacuate and not able to use that site. So that site was just basically had gouged a lot of money and just went to actions, more or less. And at this time I was really quite broke already. So we had to call it and go recover, go try to raise more funds and come back the next year. So, yeah, that was the intervention week. Well, that was the next line of action we took for the PhD part of the work. But I think there's something about just knowing that, okay, if you say everybody else has tried and there's nothing we can do, how about we sit down and take stock of what people have done and see if there are gaps in what they did and maybe we can then start to think, oh, maybe there's a solution here or there. That's. So that's kind of the approach we took. So we had, we started having meetings, you know, small group meetings, but also a town hall meeting to say, guys, something has to happen, you know, and it's funny because when we were having some of the more individual or small gathering meetings, people would say, oh, no one's going to care. No one's interested in fire. You know, they even burns their farms. They're not interested in stopping it. But during the town hall meeting, like, people came with raw emotions. They were like, my farm got burned two years ago. Like, my entire life was gone in an instant. You know, like, people were so mad if I thought about someone who died of a broken heart just because all of his life work was gone, because fires had come through. So these fires will originate from farms where people during, just before the planting season would try to take out the brush.
And so for farmers who are not, you know, careful, this can then become a wildfire that goes to other people's farms, but of course also the forest, you know, so the local people were already just sick of it, you know, like, so even though a couple of people had said this was impossible, we played this stuff here and there. A good number of people were like, let's do something, and I'm happy this is happening.
Let's come together and make it work, you know, so that was really encouraging because that just meant, okay, now we can, you know, talk to people and, and make it work. And. Yeah, so that's, and that was also the year we, we decided to launch our ngo because there were two other things we'd noticed, or at least one other thing we noticed, you know how I said, this area, this is Bokilan Afim Mountain Wildlife Center, Koshevo National Park, Bay Mountains, that it had the highest number of NGO's, or at least conservationists working in the area.
Most of these, in fact, all of this work had been on iconic megafauna, you know, like gorillas, elephants and drill monkeys and whatnot. Now, that's good. And those have been, you know, they've been umbrella species in their own right.
But here's the thing. So local people would say, do not touch a gorilla. Do not touch an elephant, because so and so government's gonna come after you. So and so is gonna come after you, but then take everything else.
We're like, this has to stop. Like, we have to let people know. If it's a conservation area, if it's a national park where you can't take anything out, then you can't take anything out. Like it's meant for all species. It's not just for gorillas or elephants. So that's kind of where the names small mammal conservation came out of. It's like, not so much how mammalogists would think of small mammals being just rodents. It was more like small sized mammals matter, too. You know, it's like small sized mammals are important, too. It's not just the mega fauna guys, you know, so that's kind of, it was all these different things, even though we. So our plan that the NGO should sort of be launched after our phds is like, you know, go focus on your pages. Finish that first. But with this problem, it was obvious. It was like, there's no way around this. We can't wait another five years before we start this journey this bad attention, you know, so, wow, wow.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: So all this is happening, like, all culminating at the exact same time. So you're like coming up with new funding to start a new, essentially all over again, and then you also launch an NGO at the same time.
Wow.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: I know.
That's amazing. That's amazing. Me too.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Thank you for joining me on this wild adventure today. I hope you've been inspired by the incredible stories, insights and knowledge shared in this episode. To learn more about what you heard, be sure to check out the show
[email protected] if you enjoyed today's conversation and want to stay connected with the rewallodology community, hit that subscribe button and rate and review the show on your favorite podcast app. I read every comment left across the show's platforms, and your feedback truly does mean the world to me.
Also, please follow the show on your favorite social media app. Join the Rewad ologist Facebook group and sign up for the weekly Rewad algae newsletter.
In the newsletter I share recent episodes, the latest conservation news, opportunities from across the field, and updates from past guests.
If you're feeling inspired and would like to make a financial contribution to the show, head on on over to rewildology.com and donate directly to the show through PayPal. Or purchase a piece of swag to show off your rewild algae love.
Remember, rewilding isnt just a concept, its a call to action. Whether its supporting a local conservation project, reducing your own impact, or simply sharing the knowledge youve gained today you have the power to make a difference.
And big thank you to the guests that come onto the show and share their knowledge with all of us and to all of you rewad ALG listeners for making the show everything it is today.
This is Brooke signing off. Remember, together we will rewild the planet.
