Bernard Research Lab

Every summer night in Wyoming, bats are hard at work above us. They eat enormous numbers of insects, helping protect our crops, ranches, and ecosystem, and almost no one ever sees it happen. For example, a single little brown bat can eat 1,000-1,500 mosquito-sized insects in a single summer night!

At the University of Wyoming, the Bernard Research Lab is working to understand the ecology and behavior of the bats that share our state. Graduate and undergraduate researchers are out in the field, often after dark, learning where bats live, how they are surviving, and what they will need as threats such as white-nose syndrome, a disease that has devastated bat populations across North America, become established in Wyoming. The data we gather now will help us detect and respond to change before it's too late.

This Giving Day, we're raising $10,000 to put students in the field. Here is what your gift makes possible.

• $25 powers long-term acoustic detectors with fresh batteries.
• $100 lights a researcher's way with a headlamp or flashlight.
• $150 fuels a round trip to the field for overnight research.
• $400 unlocks a year of acoustic analysis software.
• $1,000 buys the mist nets used to safely capture bats.
• $1,500 covers a UWyo fleet vehicle rental for a month.
• $2,000 pays an undergraduate researcher for a semester.
• $8,500 funds one graduate student's stipend and tuition for a full summer field season.

Every gift, at any level, gets a student closer to the answers we need to improve bat conservation and management. Give today and help us protect the wildlife that soar Wyoming’s night skies.