By Merlin Tuttle
4/5/2022
I have long been a believer in the power of good photos for conservation. But they work even better when paired with a passionate, intelligent speaker. That’s why I was delighted to receive the below email from Shera, the Co-Executive Director at PROGRES Sulawesi & Conservation Scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society Indonesia.
By Merlin Tuttle
3/17/2022
By illustrating scientific discoveries with spectacular photography, we equip others worldwide to overcome fear and inspire appreciation of the key ecosystem roles of bats. Our members have opportunities to contribute, both financially and personally, in making a measurable difference.
Recently, Partner Members Mindy Vescovo and Kathy Estes, funded and assisted me, our Workshop Advisory Trustee Daniel Hargreaves, our Program Coordinator Danielle Cordani, and Videographer Joey Chapman, in field photography and education in Costa Rica. We visited multiple locations including Fiona Reid’s Sylvan Falls and Harmony Hotel.
The major decline of traditionally abundant species, in Costa Rica and throughout Latin America, is cause for serious concern. In just a few days, we took a thousand new photos and recorded eight hours of video, covering 14 bat species. Many of these will soon be available in our photo gallery for use wherever needed.
4/9/2021
By Teresa Nichta
The Bat Scan Project provides photo documentation, enabling a growing number of conservation projects and exhibits worldwide to share the values of bats. These photos are also heavily used in children’s books, school reports, and in both scientific and popular publications. For example, the Smithsonian’s book, BATS: An Illustrated Guide to All Species, exclusively relied on nearly 400 of Merlin’s photos.
We’re delighted to share a few highlights from recent use.
9/3/2020
By Merlin Tuttle
Leading wildlife photographer and conservationist, Doug Gimesy, has teamed up with award-winning media graphic artist, Heather Kiley, to produce an outstanding introduction to the upside-down world of grey-headed flying foxes. Through stunning photography, simple text, and eye-catching design, this book provides a timely introduction to some of the world’s most frequently misunderstood and intensely persecuted animals.
Victims of misunderstanding and mass eradication attempts, Australia’s flying foxes now survive only as tiny fractions of former numbers. Forest clearing has left them homeless and starving. Countless thousands have been killed in mass shooting campaigns, electrocution grids, and flame thrower attacks on their roosts, known as camps. Remnant survivors are now forced to live in cities where they are needlessly demonized as carriers of dreaded diseases, despite a long history of living safely with people or subjected to attempts of forced eviction with nowhere else to go. Welcomed honeybees, dogs, and especially humans are far more dangerous! Moreover, large numbers of flying foxes are essential to reforestation and the survival of much-loved animals such as koalas.
Readers of Life Upside Down will be introduced to the real world of flying foxes as safe and invaluable neighbors and learn how they can be helped. This full-color, large-format, 48-page book is available in hardcover for $19.95 at Australian Geographic or at Book Depository.
7/22/19
By Merlin Tuttle
Doug Gimesy ranks among the very best when it comes to wildlife photographers. His numerous awards include winning the Wildscreen Panda Photo Story Award in 2018 and selection as the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year in 2019. But most importantly he is changing the way the world thinks about nature, having a heart for Australia’s much maligned flying foxes. He explains, “My hope is that the images and information I share will inspire people to stop, think, and treat the world a little more kindly.”
Doug is persuasively teaching the world about Australia’s flying foxes, from his story, “Night Gardeners” in the BBC Wildlife Magazine to “Urban battler” in Australian Geographic. View more of his flying fox photos on his site. (more…)
7/1/19
By Merlin Tuttle
The American version of BATS: An Illustrated Guide to All Species, published by the Smithsonian Institution, sold its first print run of over 5,000 copies in just three months. It also received high accolades from the science journal Nature and a prestigious Star Award from the Library Journal. The Library Journal verdict? “Far beyond the practical value of a guidebook, this is an important update to bat literature and one to savor, containing a wonder on nearly every page and proving that bats are indeed ‘intelligent, curious, comical, even essential animals.'”
The science journal Nature reported, “This guide by writer Marianne Taylor and bat conservationist Merlin Tuttle shines a light on the order Chiroptera, from the wee Kitti’s hog-nosed bat (Craseonycteris thonglongyai, a candidate for world’s smallest mammal) to the ‘megabats’ of the Pteropodidae family. Meshing deft scientific text with Tuttle’s sumptuous images, it’s a superb introduction to the baroque morphologies and flying prowess of these beguiling beasts.”
By Renee Anna Cornue
4/22/19
As MTBC’s Photo Collection Administrator, much of my responsibility lies behind a computer screen. I’d seen thousands (about 120,000 if we’re being real) of photographs from Merlin’s most-active field work days, preparing me for what to expect as much as photographs can. I’d seen mist nets, harp traps, banded bats, guano piles, and evidence of the bats’ incredible diversity.
Though fortunate to see Austin’s bats in a variety of ways, I’d never worked with bats first-hand. On this trip, I was most excited to step away from the desk and learn how bats are studied in the field, especially surrounded by knowledgeable and talented peers.
As with MTBC’s past adventures, our trip was a hands-on working trip with invaluable time and expertise contributed by leading colleagues from varied specialties. We were in the company of expert bat researchers, photographers, videographers, rehabilitators, consultants and passionate citizen scientists as we searched for some of the least known bats in the U.S.
Our digital and social media coordinator, Teresa Nichta, is learning firsthand the challenges of bat photography, whether in the studio or in the wild. This is her experience in her words.
I already knew I would love the rain forest; it was so massive yet I felt right at home.
Documenting where bats live was a major objective of this trip, and that was just what we did! Of course, I’d seen Merlin’s photos and learned about what we were looking for but seeing bats at home in the forest in person was even more enthralling than I had imagined. Bats are nearly everywhere but they’re seldom seen because they hide so well. (more…)
Have you ever squeezed into a hollow tree in the rain forest? Me neither. But MTBC’s digital/social media coordinator, Teresa Nichta, followed Merlin into just such a tree during our recent field work in Trinidad searching for… hey, let’s hear the story from Teresa and make sure you watch the video at the end!
“Great, you’re finally here! Come on, we’re going hunting for katydids,” Merlin says. It’s nearly 11pm and I drop my bags, strap on my headlight and spray bug repellent on the brand new boots I’d been wearing since I boarded the plane in Texas for Trinidad.
Thanks to Trinibat volunteers, 43 of Trinidad’s 68 bat species were captured, documented and released over the past two weeks. Little known species like Spectral (Vampirum spectrum) and Striped hairy-nosed (Mimon crenulatum) bats were tracked back to their unique roosts, providing new information essential to their conservation. (more…)
