Rotorua Canopy Tours Bat Hunt Begins The summer sun has sunk below the horizon and a quiet calm descends upon Rotorua most people relax inside preparing for another fast approaching day. As the last rays of sunshine disappear from the sky I am driving up to the Mamaku plateau to go for a stroll through the ancient primordial forest New Zealand has called its own for 80 million years. A thick lush jungle of vines shrubs ferns and huge towering trees that climb like pillars up as far as the neck can crane and have stood for centuries. It is difficult going in the day time but at night it is pitch black and eerily calm noises travel far and a stag bellows its mating call off on the farm land in the distance. On my back is an array of sensitive listening devices called Bat Detectors these weather proof boxes are made to spend time outside listening and recording the high pitched communications made by bats. In my hand is a microphone device which will emit noises as bats pass overhead.

Bats are NZs only native land based mammals and are extraordinary creatures they are declining now at such a rate we fear it is now only a matter of years before they are gone forever and are now found in only in a few locations where once they were widespread. We have discovered bats in our wonderful Dansy Road Scenic Reserve and need to know more about them in order to do as much as possible to protect them. My aim for the evening is to walk deep into the forest and place these devices in a regularly spaced grid pattern to record information on which species we have how many and which areas they use most. The going is slow tough and hampered by endless creepy crawlies spiders weta and checking traps along the lines the detectors are deployed along. One by one they are placed through the forest to be left for a week when they will be shifted so as to cover as large an area as possible. Occasionally I stopped quietly sitting down to listen to the hand held device hoping to hear the blips of bats flying above and thats what being in the forest at nights all about your eyes adjust to the low light and begin to pick out detail the odd star peaks through the canopy and your ears hear the slightest noises the far off call of an owl an alarm call from a startled bird but mostly a calm owns the night. How it must have sounded with the night birds roaming and calling the shriek of kiwi piecing through the forest.

Once the detectors are in place I leave it is now 11 oclock and walking out onto the road the starry sky is so bright after the dark of the bush that it takes the breath away there is such beauty in NZs wild places and through our continuing efforts this beautiful forest will continue to be a safe place for our native creatures to call home.