Grids of steel bars allow bats to come and go, but prohibit human access. Of the 700 mines surveyed in Colorado, nearly 80 are candidates for bat gates. The CDOW is recruiting volunteers to determine which mines provide homes for bats and need to be fitted with bat gates. You must be 18 or older and complete a training program. May. One is May 16 in Salida at the Division of Wildlife office at 7405 Hwy.
Training includes safety training as well as bat biology and habitat information.
Volunteers are given flashlights and headlamps and assigned to a team. For safety reasons, the volunteers cannot enter the mines, but monitor the entrance with detectors that translate a bat's ultrasonic cries into frequencies audible to people. Bat fossils date back 60 million years and the nodes on their gargoyle-like faces continue to help them navigate and survive. They use an amazing technique called echolocation. Using high-pitched squeaks beyond the frequency of human hearing, bats navigate and locate prey in the dark by interpreting echoes produced when their calls bounce off objects.