These past couple weeks have came and gone faster than I can wrap my head around. I have kept busy with some very exciting work regarding bats. My month started with a audio recording indicative of the presence of Indiana bats in Northern Kentucky! For those who are unaware Indiana bats are a federally endangered species. With this information we can start doing more work to protect these super special mammals that are so great for our forest’s health. I have also gotten the opportunity to be involved with some mist netting for bats with Kentucky Game and fish and Stantec, which has been a very rewarding experience. The reason they’re mist netting is in regard to some stream mitigation work happening here in Boone County. For those unaware of what mist netting is, it’s a live capture technique where large nets capture flying bats. Once captured the bats are recorded and if they’re a endangered species they are tagged with a tracker so they can find where they roost. I’ve also been able to participate In some hydromod surveys with SD1. Its been fun to work with the SD1 staff and assist them In there stream monitoring work. Along with the bat work I have been researching how to do mussel surveys in Boone County. It will not be long before we start said surveys in which I will update all yall about in my last blog. I am loving this internship and wishing I could slow down time to keep this summer from ending.
– Jaron
