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If you build it, will they come? Maybe, but it could take a while. Bats are very discriminating house hunters. More >

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As the familiar glow of police lights appeared in his rearview mirror Steve worried that he would lose his target if he pulled over. But he knew he shouldn't try to outrun the cops.

Durham Township's first ever 24/7 bat telemetry project was causing a stir for more than just the bats. It would be another couple of days before the entire Township police force became aware of the Heritage Conservancy's conservation project and the sight of cars whizzing erratically along Route 611 at all hours of the night would no longer be a cause for concern. With one hand on the wheel and the other extending a radio telemetry antenna skyward, Steve Wessock, freelance cartoonist by day, bat tracker by night, peeled away from the curb after giving the officer a heads up on the project, and continued in hot pursuit of the bat signal.

Steve was one of several volunteers following signals emitted by microtransmittors attached to seven female little brown bats. The action-packed adventures of capturing and banding these bats as they, and thousands of others, emerged from their winter hibernation site and then tracking them to their summer roosts was Steve's first foray into the world of bat fieldwork. He was immediately hooked. Devoting nine overnight hours a day (6:00 p.m.-3:00 a.m.) for all twenty days of the project, Steve quickly became an expert in using equipment he had only seen photos of in his Philadelphia Zoo docent classes. He became involved with the bat project because he wanted to do something that would have a direct impact on saving bat habitat and continues to be involved today in monitoring and protecting the sites he helped identify in April 2004.

As an added bonus to all that bat contact, Steve also became friends with Chris Sanders, one of the telemetry project team leaders. When this project was over, Chris was headed to West Virginia to conduct a census of bat species living in Monongahela National Park; in particular he was looking to provide the forest service with a status update on the Park's population of endangered Indiana bats. Steve was off again — this time for a solid month and a half. Roughing it in the great outdoors and chasing bats was his new favorite past time.

It's only been about two years since Steve Wessock developed an interest in bats, but he's spent a lifetime wading through ponds and streams in search of his favorite newts and salamanders. Over the years, like most scientific experts, Steve has noticed a steady decline in amphibian populations. Ironically, the habitat remains, but the animals are slowly disappearing. In between bat projects, Steve plans to participate in an assortment of swamp surveys to assess local wild fish and amphibian populations. And, of course, he will continue to spend his weekends enthusiastically talking to Philadelphia Zoo visitors about the importance of wildlife conservation for all animals.