Blomberg’s bat research featured in BDN
The Bangor Daily News spoke with Erik Blomberg, an assistant professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Conservation Biology at the University of Maine, about his recent bat monitoring efforts and research. Through his studies, Blomberg wants to bring the massive declines in bat populations to the public’s attention, educate residents about the extensive services that the animals provide to humans, improve monitoring methods used by researchers to evaluate Maine’s bat populations and involve citizen scientists. “I usually study birds,” Blomberg said. “But with recent concerns about bats, I recognized there’s a need for people to do research on bats in Maine.” He created a pilot citizen science-based bat-monitoring project named BatME and has since teamed up with Maine Audubon. “Bats historically have had a stigma of being bloodsucking vampires and scary. They don’t have the greatest reputation,” Blomberg said. “At the same time, they’re important for people. They deal with harmful pests, like mosquitoes and crop-eating insects.”