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Global Flying Fox Population Monitoring Network

Monitoring populations and the bushmeat trade threat.

Wild animals are an important food source for people across the world but there is growing evidence in tropical forests that the off-take is unsustainable and populations of many species are under threat.

Megabats are one of the most threatened groups of mammals in the world, with six species of flying foxes thought to have become extinct in the last few decades (IUCN) and many more being pushed closer to extinction every year. The threats to Megabats are numerous, and range from being overhunted for food, exterminated as pests or disease carriers, and the continued loss of their forest habitats. Because they are relatively large vertebrates living in conspicuous communal roosts, they are particularly attractive as an easy source of bushmeat to hunters, and there is growing evidence that high levels of hunting and trade are significantly impacting populations globally. Hunting is both for local consumption and commercial, sometimes involving cross-border transactions. (Mickelburgh et al, Oryx in press 2008).

The use of bats as food or medicine is not restricted to indigenous peoples or the countries where Megabats live (ranging across Africa, Asia and the Pacific) but also impacts the USA. Cane rat, monkey and bat are the bushmeats most often found being smuggled into the United States (CDC).

As the competition for dwindling space and forest resources continues to rise, so does human encroachment upon Megabat habitats, bringing bats and people into closer contact and raising concerns over the potential for zoonotic disease transmission. The threat of pathogen transfer from bats to humans is an issue of rapidly growing popular and scientific interest (National Geographic Magazine, http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-10/infectious-animals/quammen-text.html ), and magnifies the urgency with which knowledge of Megabat populations is needed.

Addressing the spiraling conservation crisis facing megabats, effective conservation management needs to be underpinned by a sound understanding of flying fox population dynamics, coupled with knowledge of the population impacts of bushmeat hunting, consumption and trade. Understanding natural and human influenced patterns in bat population changes will enable us to explore the impact of hunting and disease dynamics side-by-side, indentifying circumstances where it threatens population viability, and facilitating planned conservation measures that balance public health threat and endangered species conservation.

However, for most countries across Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Western Indian Ocean, population data for flying foxes either does not exist or is not readily accessible. Compounding this near-total lack of data is the fact that there are few students or biologists available to conduct the needed population research and surveys. Lubee Bat Conservancy is committed to developing long-term bat conservation research in each of these regions.

Megabats (Pteropus spp.) on a market in Sulawesi Photo © Andrew breed [Left]
Megabats (Eidolon and Hammerhead) for sale at a market in Kisangani, DRC [Right]

Megabat Population Monitoring and Bushmeat Assessments

Population monitoring information can be used regionally to highlight areas of concern, prioritize conservation activities, and inform the creation of meaningful management and recovery plans. It can also input to education programs that provide protection and stewardship of flying fox habitats, but only if the data is accurate and accessible.

Over the past decade, several “citizen science” flying fox monitoring projects have been initiated that build awareness and participation of local leaders and community members in the collection of count data at bat roosts, and the implementation of roost protection agreements. Giving the responsibility of monitoring flying fox roosts to local communities aims to ensure long-term monitoring and the enforcement of local conservation management.

Lubee Bat Conservancy funds several of these projects, with support from Disney’s Animal Kingdom and many other partners, and is seeking funds to continue to support existing programs, to expand programs to include bushmeat monitoring, and to initiate new programs to address key population research issues.

By linking projects globally through a network, our goal is to provide resources to encourage the establishment and use of standardized methods and catalyze new flying fox monitoring projects in areas where flying foxes are facing extreme hunting pressure and human encroachment, and the potential for disease emergence is high. In particular we are targeting new projects in areas identified recently in a as geographical hotspots of predicted wildlife disease emergence (Jones at al, Nature 2008).

This population monitoring network aims to support flying fox conservation by bringing together bat monitoring projects, specialists, and volunteers from across the global range of flying foxes, collating data on local threats (in particular bat bushmeat hunting and trade) and population status. We anticipate this network will provide a forum for the development of population monitoring programs that follow standardized methods, and thereby establish our ability to review the population status of flying foxes globally.

Example forms used by Project Pterocount in India: http://www.pterocount.org/index.html

These forms are being used in Borneo and by SEABCRU in other SE Asian countries: