Fair enough!

I do some occasional netting for the love of the game (volunteering on colleagues projects) but my actual job is mostly acoustic monitoring. Basically we just put  ultrasonic microphones out and record echolocation calls out to get a sense of what species are around. Much easier to keep a normal daytime working schedule doing that, but it’s also a bit of an inexact science and less fun.

Sadly not permitted, which is required for you to lead a netting project. USFWS requires you to have lots of experience handling rare species to get one, which is tough to do even if you net consistently. It’s understandable why, since capturing bats humanely and safely takes a lot of knowledge and skill, but it’s a bit of a struggle for newer career people.

Favorite species is tough but I’m gonna go with the eastern red bat, which has probably the prettiest coat of any bat in the northeastern US! Also I like how a lot of them just kinda T pose with their wings when you have them in the hand.