Des Moines, IA- The Iowa Natural Resources Commission has approved funding for another year of a program to monitor bats.
Kelly Poole with the Iowa DNR tells Radio Iowa that the program will monitor bat sounds to track them and inventory their numbers over the summer.
“Related to white-nose syndrome, which is a disease that’s killing thousands of bats,” she says. Poole Says it’s something that they have done since 2013.
“Iowa State University will be coordinating our community science program to actually collect the data. They’ll be processing the data and they’ll be submitting it to the North American bat monitoring program, which is a requirement of this grant,” Poole says.
Poole says they anticipate using some of the 35 to 40 volunteers to run routes in the state to track bats.
“The information is important to us because it’s part of our the DNR’S white notes response plan,” Poole says.
The contract for the monitoring says the costs are not to exceed $27,000.
