The Language Hamster Wheel

It's Day 9 of my 9 week stay in Mexico. I've been working all week in the office of the non-profit conservation organization I'm collaborating with (Especies, Sociedad y Habitat, A.C. (ESHAC)) to put  together my methods for my research with the bats and the local communities. I'll be doing two main things this summer for my PhD work: doing ecological monitoring of bat foraging (feeding) at agave plants at night using an infrared camera system and doing anthropological work with local communities in Nuevo Leon and Coahuila to understand their harvest and management of agaves (or magueyes as they are commonly known in Mexico) and the implications for bat conservation (and how bat conservation efforts could potentially be incorporated in the communities). I’ll be visiting two communities this Thursday and Friday to talk with the leaders about my project and after that will be going on a lot more field outings, but for right now I’m still preparing!

I’ve noticed some interesting similarities and differences between my language abilities this year versus last year. Last year during my first few days I felt pretty confident and felt like I did a pretty good job of communicating (probably because I brushed up on grammar before I arrived), but I couldn’t understand many people hardly at all since they talk so fast to my untrained ear. Then I started to feel like my speaking skills were diminishing, and about midway through my six weeks here I

Playing Catchup

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been an entire year since last May when I was heading off to Mexico for the first time! I just got back to Monterrey on Sunday (6 days ago) for my second field season for my PhD. I’ll fill you in on that in a bit, but first there are a couple things I've been wanting to blog about but with prepping for Mexico, finishing classes, etc. just didn't get around to.

First up: back in April I participated in the first meeting of the new-binational Nivalis Conservation Network, a group of researchers, non-profit organizations, and government agencies from both the US and Mexico dedicated to the conservation of the Mexican long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis), the species that I am focusing on for my PhD dissertation. The group was formed back in October 2015 during the North American Symposium on Bat Research, and as one of the founding members I helped plan and coordinate the Austin meeting in April. 18 people attended the meeting, covering the entire migratory range of the species from central Mexico to the southwest US, from places such as Bat Conservation International, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and several US and Mexican universities. We spent two jam-packed days working together to identify the current state of knowledge of the species and the research, conservation, and education priorities in each of the main regions of the migratory range (central Mexico, northeast Mexico and Texas, and Arizona and New Mexico). Since the Mexican long-nosed bat is a long-distance migrator (with the females and some males migrating over 1000 km between the mating sites in the south and the breeding caves in the north), the conservation of the species requires a coordinated effort among actors in both the US and Mexico. This meeting was the beginning of that, and I’m really looking forward to continuing to be a part of this group through my dissertation research and beyond. And I have to take a minute to recognize Bat Conservation International for their support of my research through a BCI Small Grant. Without their funding support I would not have been able to return to Mexico this summer to continue my work from last year. So THANK YOU to BCI!

 

Thousands (up to 1 million in peak summer months) of Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) emerge from under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, TX. These bats are GREAT for controlling pests that harm some of our major agricultural crops, including corn, cotton, soybeans, and pecans.

 

After an exhilarating bat emergence!