Unravelling secret life of Gibside bats

May 19 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

THE secret life of bats on a 400-acre National Trust estate in the North East will be revealed this week thanks to tiny radio transmitters that are to be temporarily attached on the creatures.

Staff at the trust’s Gibside estate in Gateshead want to build up a picture of where the bats roost and feed so they can tailor their plans to help the seven species of bat there.

Yesterday, ecologist Neil Middleton held a training session for volunteers on how to use the bat tracking equipment. Tonight and tomorrow bats will be caught in a harp trap.

When they hit the fine wires of the trap - 10ft tall by 8ft wide - the bats slide down into a sack at the bottom.

The team will then shave a small section of hair from the back of the bats’ necks and glue on a radio tracking device the size of a grain of rice and with an antennae a thin as a human hair.

The radio batteries last for up to one week and after about seven to 10 days, the device will drop off.

Gibside landscape manager Phil Bolam said: “We want to know in detail where the bats roost and how they move about the estate and feed.”

The main backer for the £25,000 project is the County Durham Environmental Trust, which is using funds received under the Government’s Landfill Communities Fund from the Premier Waste Management Company.