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Year Of The Bat Samal Bat Camp 2011

Image: year of the bat samal bat camp logo
Image courtesy The Bat Camp

Monfort Bat Cave’s, Bat Camp 2011. This Bat Camp event will educate and inform people of the unique role that bats play in our everyday lives and why it is important to protect & preserve bat habitats around the country. The Monfort Bat Cave was chosen as the venue for the start of Philippine Year Of The Bat activities because it is recognized as the location of the largest colony of fruit bats in the World (see “Samal Island Fruit Bats Into Guinness World Records”).

The Monfort Bat Cave Conservation Foundation (MBCCFI) in conjunction with Philippine Bat Conservation (PBCI) will organize a series of activities including research, exhibits, lectures, interactive learning experiences for kids plus special bat-emergence viewing and a donor’s day.

The Bat Camp 2011 will also include education about cave bats, cave research, cave assessments and how to undertake community surveys. Other issues will be brought to the fore such as: sustainable standards for bat guano mining.

One thing that has never been done before is to map the interior of the Monfort Bat Cave. During the Bat Camp this will be accomplished and the information recorded using 3D graphics computer software, so that the entirety of the cave can be studied at any time in the future, without further disturbance to the bats. Teams of participants will also undertake similar surveys of the numerous other bat caves on Samal Island, so that a complete inventory can be collated for national record, and hopefully the graphics will be published on the Internet for the benefit of international bat researchers.

Advanced technology of many sorts touches our everyday lives: it is planned to have special night-vision goggles available for the bat emergence events, so that everyone can see the sheer number of fruit bats as they emerge and fly off into the forests – there are an estimated 1.8 million fruit bats roosting by day in the Monfort Bat Cave, the majority of them emerge at dusk to forage for food.

The Bat Camp 2011 will run from 25th – 28th January and the closing festivities will be addressed by Bat Conservation International Executive Director, Nina Fascione.

Links:

The Monfort Bat Cave website

Closest webcam to the Monfort Bat Cave is: Hof Gorei Beach Resort webcam on Samal island

 

 

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