Project Coordinator: Karen McClure
Counties: All Counties
Address: Various addresses
The Acoustic Bat Monitoring Project started in 2024 when Craig Hensley, an employee of Texas Nature Trackers, decided the Texas Master Naturalists would be the perfect citizen scientists to help the North American Bat Monitoring Project (NABat) gather the data they need.
The Gideon Lincecum Chapter signed up right away. So far, we have collected data in 2024 and 2025 by placing monitors in one to two locations each week over a 9-week study period. The monitors are collected each week and the data copied. The data is then run through a computer program that tries to determine which bats have been recorded. That data is then summarized into reports for the state and the landowners that let us record on their property.
In 2025 Biologist Rachel Grotte replaced Craig Hensley on the project following his retirement and with NABat’s guidance is making changes to the project to provide the data they want from Texas. As of 2026, the State Park System has also agreed to allow monitoring in the parks.
As we learn how all these changes will be implemented, we will let chapter members know of any need for additional volunteers through the regular channels. The links below will take you to the original TMN Tuesday that introduced the project and the NABat Project Plan.
For more information about this project, please review the following:
- https://txmn.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Acoustic-Monitoring-of-Texas-Bats-A-Citizen-Science-Project-for-TMNs-.pdf
- https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr/gtr_srs208.pdf
