The Townsend's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii) is considered one of the rarest mammal species in the northwest. It relies heavily on caves and mines for roost sites and is very sensitive to disturbances. Although it seems to shun bat houses, occasionally it has been found roosting in old buildings. Of the twelve maternity roosts known in Washington, only two are in the eastern part of the state, both in man-made structures.

Protection of this bat species is usually a matter of gating a roost cave to prevent disturbance. However, this Spokane colony was a more unique situation. The maternity colony, consisting of 125 to 150 bats, was found on private land. The owners of the property knew nothing of the bats when they bought it and were planning to remodel the structure into a bunkhouse. They were ready to start re-roofing work on the bunkhouse last year (1999) which would have excluded the bats. But when Howard explained the importance of the colony, they agreed to wait and see if an alternative could be found.

Knowing there was little chance to relocate the colony, Howard set out to see what kind of a substitute he could offer the landowners. They agreed to leave the structure alone if they could receive funding for a similar structure elsewhere on the property. That meant that Howard had to find almost $20,000!

Howard contacted Bats Northwest, a private, non-profit organization that isn't big enough (yet!) to fund such a project. But with the fund-raising skills and enthusiasm of Bats Northwest’s Deborah Livingstone, and with the help of Margaret Gaspari and Susan Montana, Howard began applying for grants. It took six months of effort and a number of setbacks, but $20,000 were raised! Bat Conservation International (BCI) was the first to step up and pledge funds. Then, due in large part to the early seed money grant from BCI, Bats Northwest received grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Federation (NFWF) and the Washington state’s Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account (ALEA).

With the bat colony saved, Howard realized there was great potential at the site for learning more about this rare species. The grant search continued for funds to find non-intrusive methods by which the bats could be studied and monitored, including remote video monitoring and microclimatic data logging of the roost.  Another grant from Bat Conservation International (BCI) and one from the Disney Foundation (Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund….thanks Mickey!) were secured for this research. Dr. Margaret O'Connell from Eastern Washington University (EWU) agreed to help supply graduate students who would help study the bats and collect data. Mark Neutzmann is the first EWU graduate student involved in the project. An offshoot of the video monitoring effort is this BatCam website.

Getting this BatCam website up and running was a widespread community effort!  It first took Gary Smith from US West to recommend Mike Jasper of Jasper Technologies (208-765-1016) to donate his effort and time for digging and installing almost a mile of phone line to the remote cabin. Mike Jasper also helped with installing electrical cable to the cabin. Sharon Johnson of US West helped us figure out who to contact at US West to discover what options were available for connecting our web camera to the phone line. Then Ziegler’s Building Center (509-489-8760) agreed to sell us at cost the materials required to get electricity to the cabin. The Inland Northwest Wildlife Council (509-487-8552) donated the monies to purchase these materials. Once we had electricity, Huppin's Hi-Fi Photo & Video (509-747-6486) donated a VCR and some tapes. The local chapter of the Safari Club International, the Inland Empire Chapter, donated a combined 13" TV and VCR unit and also helped pay for the electricity being hooked up to this remote cabin. Finally, Tim Brown, with the help of B.E. Meyers & Co, supplied the cameras to make this whole thing a reality -- as they both have done for all of our other web cam sites.  Without the untiring efforts of Chuck Gibilisco, of WDFW’s Watchable Wildlife program, all the pieces of the project puzzle came together. Rod deSilva of B.E. Meyers helped program and set up the web server and modem to make the pieces work together. For you to see it, we thank WDFW’s webmaster John Burrows.

Most importantly, we thank the private landowners involved (who prefer to remain anonymous). Without their cooperation, concern and understanding, none of this would have even been attempted.