One Session: March 19-20 (Saturday-Sunday). Class size: Limited to 20 participants. Location: Eisenhower Hotel and Conference Center, Gettysburg, PA.

Gettysburg National Battlefield
The Battle of Gettysburg was a turning point in the Civil War, the Union victory in the summer of 1863 that ended General Robert E. Lee's second and most ambitious invasion of the North. Often referred to as the "High Water Mark of the Rebellion," it was the war's bloodiest battle with 51,000 casualties. It also provided President Abraham Lincoln with the setting for his most famous address. Gettysburg National Military Park is the site of the American Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, the Soldiers' National Cemetery and the commemoration of the great battle of Civil War veterans.
Significant sites on the battlefield began to be preserved almost immediately after the 1863 battle, and the park came under federal ownership in 1895. Administered by the National Park Service (NPS) since 1933, the park now incorporates a significant portion of land across which the battle, its aftermath and the commemoration occurred. The park attracts 1.8 million visitors each year and is open year-round. It offers visitors hiking trails, scenic car tours on over 40 miles of roads, and beautiful vistas overlooking the battlefield and nearby town. There are also over 1,400 monuments and 400 cannons, which dot the landscape. The park is situated in the Piedmont Province east of Appalachian Mountains in south central Pennsylvania, encompasses over 5,989 acres of land. The park is fifteen miles east of South Mountain, which rises to 2,000 feet above sea level. Within the park are gently rolling hills and valleys with elevations averaging between 500 to 580 feet above sea level. The landscape is a mosaic of mature and maturing woodlands and woodlots, agricultural fields, pasturelands and intermittent streams which provide habitat for 187 bird, 34 mammal, 17 reptile and 15 amphibian species documented to date. Floral inventories have recorded 553 species of vascular plants, of which 410 are native.

Please note: you will find our agenda to be well packed and allow no time whatsoever to sightsee. Plan to stay an extra day before or after this workshop if you wish to explore the National Battlefield, the Eisenhower National Historic Site, or other various museums and shops.

Workshop Instructors:
Joe Szewczak, B.S.E. (1980) Duke University, Ph.D. (1991) Brown University, is an Associate Professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA. His research has investigated the physiological capabilities of bats and other small mammals, from cold hibernative torpor to the intense demands of flight and high altitude, and the physiological ecology of bats,. His teaching includes “Using SonoBat for Non-invasive Bat Monitoring” for the University of California, “Biology of the Chiroptera” at Humboldt State University, and “The Ecology and Conservation of California Bats” through San Francisco State University. Joe has also taught acoustic monitoring workshops for BCI and other groups in California, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, South Dakota, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. He is the developer of SonoBat software to analyze and interpret bat echolocation calls and is currently developing automated bird and bat acoustic monitoring and identification methods for the Department of Defense (SERDP) and other agencies.

John Chenger, president of Bat Conservation and Management, Inc. (BCM), has worked with the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) to conduct cave and mine assessments and other bat inventories. He has also worked with BCI since 1997 to facilitate training workshops in Arizona, California, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. He founded BCM in 1999 to address nuisance bat management issues by providing man-made roosts and performing bat-exclusion and bat- proofing services. His company has grown to include seasonal bat roost and habitat surveys, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) endangered species compliance inventories, acoustic monitoring studies, and large-scale migratory bat radio-tracking projects. His work has led him to develop and manufacture commercially available survey gear including mist net poles, portable triple-high mist-net sets, harp traps, and bat houses certified by BCI.

Lectures/Discussions:
Echolocation 101: The principles and biomechanics of echolocation; how bats use sound; the advantages/disadvantages of echolocation; what animals use ultrasound, why, and how; why bat calls are different from bird calls (and more difficult to discriminate), and more

The mechanics of sound and how it carries information; wave theory: frequency, velocity, amplitude; frequency and spatial resolution; what bats can detect; what they can't
call morhpology and foraging strategies; the ecophysiology of echolocation; how noise (and other bats) affects echolocation
- Advantages/limitations of capture methods
- Advantages/limitations of acoustic methods
- What information can be acquired acoustically
- Where and how to collect calls; practical advice
- Monitoring program design, implementation, and data analysis

Understanding bat detectors, how they work, and limitations and advantages: heterodyne, zero-crossing, frequency division, time expansion/ full-spectrum. Advances in acoustic recording technology, methods, and analysis
- active vs. passive monitoring
- automated recording

Recording Engineering 101- setting up to acquire data
Understanding and using digital sound recording; recording, recording settings; notes and filenaming
equipment connections; manual call recording; monitoring and triggering; recognizing and avoiding sources of unwanted ultrasound
automated call recording; digital recorders and computers.

Call and sequence morphology and terminology; sequence (i.e., bat pass) information; call information; interpreting call morphology; call parameters; distortion and quality; harmonics; recording limitations; out of range calls; mimicry; call plasticity and vocal repertoires; species characteristics of eastern North American bats; troublesome species; knowing when to NOT make the call

Setting up a study; study design; sample size; temporal and spatial aspects; analysis; site selection and recording logistics; Set up recording equipment

Location and Directions: Eisenhower Hotel and Conference Center, Gettysburg, PA. Please see map at http://www.eisenhower.com/directions.php

Dates: March 19-20 (Saturday and Sunday). Check in starts at 8 AM, Acoustic Monitoring Program begins at 9 AM in the Ballroom of the Eisenhower I building.

Airport Shuttle: We will be offering a very limited airport shuttle from and to Washington-Dulles Airport (IAD). There will be one pickup Friday March 18 at approximately 6:30 PM. There will be one drop off Monday March 21 at approximately 7 AM. Contact John Chenger with your flight info and cell phone number if you wish to take advantage of this shuttle. If you find yourself "stuck" at Dulles with hours to kill, there is a free shuttle service to and from the National Air & Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center located on the Dulles campus and is very highly recommended.

Eisenhower Hotel Lodging:
Overnight lodging is available in the same building where lectures are scheduled. There is a group rate for $79.00 a night. Internet specials may be less, check Eisenhower Hotel website and register online if possible. Mention Bat Conservation and Management group rate if phoning in your reservation.

Off-site Lodging:
Use this Google link to show a map of the Gettysburg vicinity with hotels overlaid. The Eisenhower Hotel is on Emmitsburg Pike south of the National Battlefield, just south of the Eisenhower Historic Site. A few budget hotels are next to the Eisenhower Hotel and even in walking distance.

General Equipment: The course is conducted entirely within a classroom setting, indoors, with free Wi-Fi Internet access. Functional trials of SonoBat will be available for students to install on a personal laptop prior to the course. Please bring a laptop loaded with the SonoBat demo, any previously recorded bat call files (*.wav format; recorded with time-expansion or direct-recording detectors), and a memory stick (2 GB or larger). It is very important for participants to pre-install the software and become familiar with its basic layout and operations to maximize time spent learning the various features and utilities. No fieldwork will be conducted during this workshop. No bats will be handled at this workshop. (Participants do not need rabies pre-exposure vaccination.)

Acoustic Equipment: Please bring personal bat detector(s), recorder(s), and connecting cables. We will have a number of Pettersson D240x detectors for participants to borrow, and a demo AR125 and SM2BAT. Simulated bat calls will be broadcast during a demonstration portion of the class, allowing students to make test-recordings using different detector models and practice off-loading, viewing, analyzing, and processing calls.

Meals: Morning coffee and working lunches on 19 and 20 are included with the registration fee. Please indicate below if you require vegetarian meals. All other meals are "on your own" as we expect people will want to explore some of the dinner options in historic Gettysburg nearby. Many resturant options are available within 10 minutes of the Eisenhower Hotel, but be aware while the Eisenhower has a resturant and lounge in house, there are no other establishments within walking distance.

Social: There will be an after meeting meeting in the Eisenhower Hotel lounge after the evening session March 19. Topics to be discussed do not necessarilly have to include the Nyquist frequency and Moore’s Law, we may just want to unwind.

2. A review of the pros, cons, and applications of HET, FD, TE, and DR detectors to collect and interpret bat echolocation calls and what this means for acoustic inventory study design.

3. A discussion of active vs. passive monitoring and how these techniques figure into an acoustic survey.

4. Introducing students to SonoBat 3.0, basic operations, and what the output means for rendering species ID decisions (i.e., dispelling the quickly emerging myth and explaining carefully that calls identified with a DP of 0.95 DOES NOT mean that there's a 95% chance that the recording was from the species indicated).

5. Addressing bat echolocation call characteristics and what is known about using these for making species ID determinations, caveats, and confusing species.

6. Assisting participants with setting up TE and DR detectors and recorders to perform PASSIVE monitoring activities.