JACKSON, Wyo. — The Jackson Hole Bird & Nature Club’s free presentation, “Bats of Wyoming,” will delve into “what makes bats special and unique” on Tuesday, July 8, at 6 p.m. at the Teton County Library.
At 5:30 p.m., the club will offer a social hour for members and visitors to meet the event’s guest speaker, Dr. Riley Fehr Bernard, an applied wildlife ecologist and assistant professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the Bernard Research Lab at the University of Wyoming. Dr. Bernard will provide “a peek into what her lab has been helping to uncover in an attempt to save the region’s bats.” Her research focuses on foraging, diet, competition, invasive species interactions and the effects of disease on community structure.
According to the JH Bird & Nature Club, numerous bat species in North America are facing severe population declines due to anthropogenic stressors such as habitat loss, climate change and the introduction of disease.
“While research on bats has been incredibly informative for conservation, most research has been conducted in the eastern portion of the continent, where bats are more easily accessible in caves and mines during winter,” JH Bird & Nature Club said via press release. “Bats in the west are just as susceptible to these threats, but information regarding their ecology is lacking.”
JH Bird & Nature Club wrote in a statement that researchers in the Bernard Research Lab are working to fill knowledge gaps related to bat ecology, behavior and persistence.
“We are working to better understand where at-risk species roost during summer, how they utilize our novel landscape and how they are affected by various environmental stressors,” JH Bird & Nature Club wrote.
Dr. Bernard has a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Tennessee and a master’s in Tropical Conservation Biology and Environmental Science from the University of Hawaii, Hilo. She is a Past-President of Wyoming Chapter of The Wildlife Society, the Program Director for the North American Society for Bat Research and has been named University of Wyoming Provost’s Term Professor from 2024 to 2027.
JH Bird & Nature Club and Teton Plants Nature & Science Night programs are typically held on the second Tuesday of each month. From April through October, the club’s programs at Teton County Library are not shown on Zoom or recorded.
