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Africa Projects
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Western Indian Ocean Islands
Madagascar Madagascar Flying Fox Monitoring Program
Village residents and members of a local bat focused NGO (ACCE) make regular checks to monitor colony size and any threats. This has led to a large increase in the abundance of the bats in the project site at Ambakaona. Faeces from the roosting bats are collected and germinated in a nursery to provide seedlings for restoration of the land surrounding the roosts.
Madagasikara Voakajy is a Malagasy biodiversity organization dedicated to the conservation of endemic vertebrates and their habitats in Madagascar. Photo courtesy Richard Jenkins www.madagasikara-voakajy.org
Flying Foxes and Baobab (Anadansonia Suarezensis) Conservation in Madagascar
This project aims to describe the relative importance of flying foxes pollinators of endangered baobabs relative to lemurs and to use this ecological service as a lever for conservation. We aim to conserve the feeding (baobab trees and surrounding forest) and roosting (forest fragments, mangrove etc.) sites of bats that visit A suarezensis in the Diana Region in northern Madagascar. We observed two fruit bat species (P. rufus and E. dupreanum) and a lemur, Eulemur coronatus, feeding on baobab nectar. We also suspected that R. madagascariensis fed on the nectar but these bats made fleeting visits and were never trapped near baobabs or captured on film (they were trapped in abundance however at flowering Ceiba pentandra in nearby villages). We only observed P. rufus on one occasion and all other 14 fruit bats visits were made by E. dupreanum. All of the fruit bat visits were to trees that were isolated from the surrounding canopy whilst all of the lemur visits were to trees that were situated close to adjacent tall vegetation. All mammal visits were recorded on the 15 trees observed at Beantely whilst no visits were observed on the five trees at Montagne de Française. Part of the research contributed to a doctoral study of two Malagasy students, Radosoa Andrianaivoarivelo and Daudet Andriafidison. Photo courtesy Allyson Walsh.
Feeding Ecology Of Pterobus Rufus In a Remnant Gallery Forest Surrounded By Sisal Plantations In South-East Madagascar
The single most important food source for P rufus at Berenty is the pollen of Sisal (Agave sisalana), a commercial species introduced to the area 60 yrs ago. This is unique when compared to P rufus elsewhere in Madagascar. The bats foraged up to 17 km away, on a narrow diet of up to 14 plant species, including both cultivated and native endemic forest fruits. They did not feed in endemic spiny forests, suggesting that the conservation of remaining gallery forest fragments as well as the retention of sisal plantations is important to maintain food sources for P rufus at this site. Photo courtesy Emma Long.
Western Indian Ocean Islands Mauritius Fruit Bat Population Estimates, Seasonal Movements and Public Education
Reviewing a Monitoring Program for the Critically Endangered Fruit Bat Pteropus LivingstonII in the Union of the Comoros: A Model for Bat Population Monitoring Programs Led By Local Communities
Livingstone's flying fox (P. livingstonii) is a critically endangered fruit bat endemic to two islands (Moheli and Anjouan) in the Union of the Comoros, in the Western Indian Ocean. Beginning in 1994, the NGO Action Comores (International) established a population monitoring program with Comorians, with five specific objectives: to survey all known roosts simultaneously twice yearly in order to provide data for long-term population monitoring; to survey larger roosts monthly to clarify seasonal trends; to continue to search for additional roosts; to increase awareness of P. livingstonii in villages close to roosts; and to involve Comorians actively in the conservation of P. livingstonii. Thanks to their efforts, population estimates were revised from approximately 100 bats in 1992 to 1200 bats in 2002. A small grant from Lubee is supporting detailed statistical analyses of monitoring data collected at roosts P. livingstonii over the past 10 years, and a critical review of the monitoring program’s quality and long-term sustainability is being produced by Action Comores International. A report will be disseminated to those actively involved in the conservation of P. livingstonii, both in the Union of the Comores and internationally. Photo courtesy Will Masefield.
Pemba Flying Fox Conservation Project
The Pemba flying fox has traditionally been hunted by Pembaris as a source of food, originally using simple traps on long sticks, and more recently with shotguns. Reports in the early 1990s indicated that the species was at risk of extinction as a result of hunting and habitat loss, and consequently the species was listed as Critically Endangered. A program of conservation measures for the species was initiated in 1995. Since then, with 5 year funding from the Lubee in 1998, and recent funding from the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, Fauna & Flora International has supported the Forestry Department on Pemba to undertake a range of conservation activities. These have included an extensive education campaign, establishment of environmental clubs to protect roosts close to villages, meetings with hunters and key decision makers, and ongoing monitoring of the bat population. As a result, the hunting of bats with shotguns has been banned across most of the island, eight key roosts receive direct protection, and the population count of flying foxes has increased from 4,600 to 9,000 in 2004. This resulted in the down-listing of the threat status of the species from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable by IUCN - the World Conservation Union in 2004. This program remains active today. Photo courtesy Abigail Entwistle.
Africa Satellite Telemetry and the Landscape Ecology of Migratory Fruit Bats (Eidolon Helvum) in Kasanka National Park, Zambia.
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& Teachers
Since 2003 the Lubee has supported a project to conserve roosting colonies of the Madagascar flying fox Pteropus rufus in the Alaotra-Mangoro Region of Eastern Madagascar. P. rufus frequently uses small fragment of natural forest that otherwise have a very low biodiversity value. These need to be included in new protected areas or conserved by local communities. 
Madagascar’s baobab trees are tourist icons, and famous the world over. Of the six species that are endemic to Madagascar, two (Adansonia suarezensis and Adansonia grandidieri) are pollinated by nocturnal mammals (bats and lemurs). Both of these baobab species are listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List and face an uncertain future. 
In the south of Madagascar, the largest roost of Pteropus rufus is found at the Private Reserve of Berenty. Here the bats roost at the center of a tamarind forest and the colony varies in size from around 600 bats during the cyclone season (Dec-Mar) to over 1,800 bats at the height of the dry season (Aug-Oct). This colony was the subject of a 28 month study by PhD student, Emma Long. 
On the island of Mauritius (in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Madagascar), the Government of Mauritius has opted to relax the protection on the Mauritius Fruit Bat Pteropus niger and start culling this species because of its alleged depredations upon cultivated fruit crops. Letters from international conservation organizations (including Lubee Bat Conservancy) and the IUCN have managed to halt the cull temporarily. Recent studies on the Mauritius Fruit Bat have clearly shown that some of the population estimates that have been suggested by the fruit growers are greatly overestimated. Since the Mauritius Fruit Bat is already regarded as vulnerable by the IUCN, culling will leave the species especially vulnerable to catastrophic population declines like its neighbor the Rodrigues Fruit bat (an SSP Species). Lubee Bat Conservancy encouraged formation of a small group of interested partners (The Philadelphia Zoo, Lubee, AZA Bat TAG, Organization for Bat Conservation) to raise emergency funds to support studies to better understand the status of the bats and the true nature of this problem through the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation. Through scientific studies of crop predation, bat population counts and a broad education campaign, we hope to be able to provide the information to support a stop future culling. Photo courtesy Paula Senior. 
Most conservation field projects are initiated with barely enough funding to cover their action on the ground, and rarely to encompass funding to take a step back and evaluate the project. Such a process is now a vital component of conservation management, and Lubee is pleased to support an evaluation of the monitoring program of the Critically Endangered Livingstone’s flying fox (Pteropus livinsgtonii). 
Flying foxes have a distribution that stretches from Australia and the Pacific across south-east Asia to the western Indian Ocean. No flying foxes are found on mainland Africa, although two species are recorded within the territory of Tanzania on offshore islands. One of these is the Pemba flying fox Pteropus voeltzkowi, which is endemic to the island of Pemba - 40 km offshore, adjacent to the island of Zanzibar. 
Every fall, one of the world’s largest migrations takes place in Kasanka National Forest in Zambia. Approximately 8 million Straw-colored Fruit Bats (Eidolon helvum) congregate within a few square miles and stay from mid-October through January every year. No one knows where they all come from or where they go when they leave. Lubee funded research by PhD student and former Lubee volunteer, Heidi Richter in order to learn more about the fruit bats of the park and this amazing migration, using satellite radio tracking. The research conducted by Richter and her University of Florida supervisor Dr. Graeme Cumming, examined the role of food availability on this migration, demonstrating that the Kasanka bats do indeed congregate at a time of high local food abundance. Now there are hopes to track the bats’ long distance movements as they feed and travel away after their stay in the park, following their migration routes and discovering where the bats spend the rest of the year. To ensure success in the field, Richter tested several transmitter attachment collars on captive bats at Lubee for both the safety and comfort of the bats wearing them. Use of the captive bat collection at Lubee to help develop field techniques is a practical tool for researchers and equipment manufacturers. It also provides an opportunity for Lubee’s bat keepers to share their in depth knowledge of the species behavior with the research team. Initial results from the project followed one bat over 1,500 km from Zambia into the Congo, proving these bats migrate long distances. While Richter and Cumming have reached an endpoint in their work, research continues on the colony students of Prof Paul Racey (Aberdeen University, and Dr Walsh is now working with Microwave Telemetry to help re-design the transmitters, which had difficulty recharging, and the Lubee team of keepers Future attempts to track and study these bats will be made pending funding. To read about this project in Communique Magazine published by the AZA - Home
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