Ba(t)minton
This is my first field trip to Bangladesh since joining EcoHealth Alliance, formerly Wildlife Trust. I spent time with our team of wildlife veterinarians and field technicians near Faridpur, a four hour drive (and ferry ride) west of Dhaka. We were going out as part of our routine Nipah virus sampling in Pteropus fruit bats (Pteropus giganteous). While a four hour drive isn't really that long, it seems a lot longer when one is dodging rickshaws and weaving in and out around trucks!
Thankfully, we arrived safely later in the evening and immediately went out to check the field site. This trip was both my first time in Bangladesh as well as my first time working on Nipah virus surveillance. While it is still light we approach the trees where bats are roosting. The bats are already active and flying around calling and screeching. I watch in amazement as these beautiful creatures take flight and go out to forage for the night. Our field technician, scrambles up a nearby tree to tie the net posts high above the tree line, the net sits above the trees. After setting the poles we go back to town for two hours of sleep before we get up again to return for the for the night and begin catching bats to sample.
Driving back out to our field site in the pitch blackness of night we get to the site and raise the catch net on the poles we've set up earlier. I think to myself that the net looks like we are getting ready to play a game of badminton.
We settle in and sit under the net, waiting for bats to fly into it. Each time a bat gets caught in the net, we lower the net, one person with thick gloves carefully restrains the bat and I carefully and gingerly untangle it from the net. We place the captured bats in ventilated cotton holding sacks, each bat has its own bag. The bats quickly settle in and just hang from the top of the cotton bag and quietly wait for us.
As dawn starts to break we take down the net and bring the bats to our makeshift lab where we start processing samples. In order to make the process safer for both the bats and the team we have a portable anesthesia machine. Once the bat is anesthetized, we can start. Sampling involves taking measurements, body length, weight, etc, taking a blood sample, assessing the body condition and placing a microchip (just like in your cat or dog) so the bat can be identified. Once we are finished, we monitor the bat until it wakes up. After processing all the bats we release them back into the wild.
These amazing creatures awake and we give them some mango juice as a treat and it perks them right up with some energy. We let the bats drink as much as they require for being such good patients. At that point, the furry creature hangs from our sturdy glove for just a moment, and then in an instant they are off again, flying through the trees back to their roost.
By the time we've cleaned everything up and driven back into town it is noon time. Now, taking a cue from the the bats we hang our hats for a few hours of sleep during the day. Later in the day we head back to the field site to process the blood samples and set everything up for another night of sampling and plan on doing this for the next week. The fruit bats are large, beautiful creatures and I am grateful for the opportunity to work with them. After our sampling here in Bangladesh, it's back to the U.S. for a quick stay before I here back to the field.