Lakeshore Bat Walk- 25 October 2025

In honor of this year’s international Bat Week (Oct 24-31), the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve partnered with the Wisconsin Science Festival and the University of Wisconsin Bat Brigade to host an evening bat walk to raise awareness about bat conservation. 

Around 40 participants attended the bat walk including students and members of the public. They were led by Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve board member and Bat Brigade leader Makeela Magomolla as well as student officers Tayah Dean and George Whitney.

The Bat Brigade is a student-led citizen science initiative to collect acoustic data to monitor bat species at the Lakeshore Nature Preserve in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Bats are surveyed using an ultrasonic recording device called the Echo Meter which records their echolocation calls. The calls, which bats use to navigate and hunt, can also be used for species identification. 

Wisconsin has eight species of bats, seven of which have been documented within the Lakeshore Nature Preserve. For Saturday’s bat walk, Tayah, George, and Makeela split up into three groups for a 30min hike through separate routes of the Preserve. Folks were able to learn about bat ecology, life history, and threats of the white-nose syndrome disease all while hearing bats in real time. Although October is toward the end of the bat season, as cave species go to hibernate and migratory species are migrating, a few bats were still heard Saturday evening including the hoary, eastern red, and little brown bat. 
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To summarize the evening, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covered the event for a feature just in time for All Hallows’ Eve. To learn more about the UW Bat Brigade, please visit the UW News feature as well and come join the Brigade for next year’s Bat Week! 

Photo by Tony Xiao