WPAS monthly meeting in the Community Room on the First Floor of Macomb, IL City Hall.
Program: "Bats" by Cathy Ziglar
“Bats” begins with a brief overview of bat biology and bat ecology while pointing out some of the reasons everyone should want to protect… and even enjoy bats. We will review some of the reasons that many bat species are struggling to maintain viable populations in today’s environment and discuss some of the efforts in progress to thwart this decline. The program will also share trends in bat species and relative abundance detected by acoustic monitoring in Des Moines County, Iowa.
Cathy Ziglar has always connected with the natural world, so a career teaching science was the perfect fit. She began her teaching career with Biology and Chemistry at high school, and eventually moved to Southeastern Community College where she spent eighteen years as a Biological Sciences professor.
She believes in giving back. So in addition to her profession career she is involved in many volunteer activities. She spent nearly fourteen years on the Des Moines County Conservation Board, one year on the Iowa County Conservation System Board, participates regularly with Leopold Landscape Alliance, is a member of the SCC Foundation Board, and works at the Des Moines County Youth Jamboree.
While working on her MS degree she researched turtles in the Mississippi sloughs and backwaters, but her interest turned from turtles to bats while she served on the DMCC Board. One DMCC property, Big Hollow, has a long standing history of bat populations that includes the Indiana bat. With the help of USFWS to get started DMCC began to do some of their own acoustic monitoring. Over the past five years Cathy has written grants to tap into the DNR Wildlife Diversity grant program and has implemented acoustic studies at numerous locations throughout the county. She was also fortunate enough to participate in bat mist-net surveys conducted by Russ Benedict, Biology Professor at Central College.
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