Meanwhile, as of Saturday the NY DEC had two of their four sodalis pinned down - 20 and 23 miles southeast of their northern project site. It is interesting that all three recent projects have had bats traveling in the same direction, as if they are going towards the same place. We offered our equipment and manpower resources towards their effort, but with the bats in the same roost for three days they are hopeful that neither will move again.

A few of the preliminary results of our study are as follows:

• We based the projects start date on advice of our regional sodalis experts, all of which predicted we were arriving too early to catch females emerging. The emergence behavior of these M. sodalis caught everyone by surprise. By the time aircraft became available on the original schedule, the females had finished emerging. Had we arrived any later, our effort would have yielded no female captures, and there would have been no tracking at all, ground or air.
• The ground effort was outstanding-- tracking four bats over a combined total of 68 miles (3 for 67 miles), in only nine days. Right up to the point of ultimate escape, we know where they went, how they did it, and how long it took them.
• Judging by the preliminary reports at the northern project, female sodalis emerged at approximately the same time as our southern site.
• Originally 4 entrances were known to our main project site. Three additional entrances were later found after our internal survey, all with bats emerging from them.
• The traditional aircraft mounting used in telemetry is less than ideal for the low pulse strength of bat transmitters. Twice the range was obtained by using non-traditional mounting techniques, which needs to be aproved by the FAA before it is used.
• Since the intention is to find any maternity roost, and individual bats are going long distances, transmitters could be on the same frequency to maximize ground and air searches. Poor transmitter availability require nearly 6 months of project lead time.
• It is clear now that subjects used last year were not as hearty as the 6 to 8 gram NY bats. Last year's bats moved only 10-20 miles per jump whereas we feel the NY subjects have the ability to go over 80 miles per night.
• Bat #1's capture occurred before all the tracking equipment and personel were on site. Despite this, the bat was followed as it traversed one of the most difficult areas to navigate at the time. The first tracking of any project calls attention to areas where both protocal and equipment needs to be optimized
• Bat #2 was followed nearly 30 miles in less than 80 minutes. By the time local pilots got up to speed with FAA licenses, it's possible this bat could have been in the Carolinas. Surprisingly, this bat's chosen route went right through downtown Newburg.
• Bat #3 went underground. If it's transmitter frequency was identical to others, it's possible this bat could have been reacquired later. If not for the intensive ground effort prior to it's going back underground, a significant amount of air & ground searching would have been wasted.
• Bat #4's lackluster migration suggested at the time that it was in it's home range. The logistics of crossing the Hudson River contributed to it's escape.
• There are still thousands of bats, including sodalis, in all of these sites...what are they waiting for? Are they mostly all males? Apparently to catch appropriate bats at these sites you need to arrive in late March with snowshoes and skis.
• The ground searching effort has given us excellent behavior information while migrating and interesting stopover roost data. Ibat #4's stop under someone's deck for two days then roosting on a building in New Paltz is very interesting. Was it feeding around a floodlight, or was it excluded from a building?
• These bats went further, faster, and with much less delay time to forage and put on body weight than anyone predicted. That coupled with the early emergance of females and the poor performance of traditional yagi airplane mounts lead to failure to find maternity sites. The ground tracking effort was well coordinated, swift moving, and very sucessful. This type of effort has much promise, and the sucess of future projects of this type will be based on the lessons learned here.