MEETING REPORT: Dr. Kristen Lear Presents, "Agave Restoration And Corridor Conservation For Bats And People Of The American Southwest And Mexico", June 2025
- k-england
- Jul 1
- 3 min read
See the fascinating presentation here:
About Bat Conservation International
Based in Austin, Texas, our mission is to conserve the world’s bats and their ecosystems to ensure a healthy planet. We are dedicated to saving bat species and their habitats around the world. Founded in 1982, BCI has grown into a globally recognized conservation organization dedicated to ending bat extinctions. We’re fiercely passionate, expert conservationists and scientists who are leading the charge to ensure the worldwide survival of these extraordinary mammals.
Working together, our goal is to redefine what is possible in global conservation, through the utilization of cutting-edge tools, technology, and training to create a real, measurable impact.
About Dr. Lear
Dr. Kristen Lear, Program Director for Bat Conservation International’s Agave Restoration Initiative, is in charge of BCI’s bi-national Agave Restoration Initiative.
She got her start in bat conservation in 6th grade when she built and installed bat houses for her Girl Scout Silver Award project. Since then, she has worked on bat research, conservation, and education projects around the world.
She earned a BA in Zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2011, where she assisted with a project studying the pest control services of bats in pecan orchards and led a bat house study for her Honors research. Following graduation, she earned a Fulbright Scholarship to study the critically endangered Southern bent-wing bat (Miniopterus schreibersii bassanii) in South Australia. In 2020, Kristen earned her Ph.D. in Integrative Conservation from the University of Georgia. Her Ph.D. work combined natural and social science approaches to aid in the conservation of the endangered Mexican long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis) in northeast Mexico.
Kristen is a National Geographic Explorer, AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador working to encourage girls and young women in STEM fields, and a Lifetime Member of Girl Scouts. She is also passionate about public outreach and education, giving numerous bat talks at schools and organizations around the world, leading public bat walks and bat house building workshops, and making numerous media appearances, including on CBS’ “Mission Unstoppable” TV show. More information about Kristen’s work can be found here.
Dr. Lear presents about this successful bi-national collaboration that is counteracting the downward ecological spiral that threatened these co-dependent desert dwellers.
In recent years, habitat loss and roost disturbance had led to the rapid decline of three nectar-feeding bats, the Lesser Long-Nosed Bat, Mexican Long-Nosed Bat and the Mexican Long-Tongued Bat, that follow corridors of flowering agaves and cactuses for sustenance during their annual migration north from Mexico to their breeding sites in the US Southwest. The agaves likewise rely on the migrating bats for pollination as the bats brush pollen from plant to plant as they feed.
The broad-ranging efforts of the Agave Restoration Initiation have led to equally broad-ranging successes for the plants, the bats, and the local humans impacted by this project.
Our very own Susi Torre-Bueno shared this amazing bat story...
When Jose was in grad school in NYC at Rockefeller University, I got a job (in 1971) working for his professor, Dr. Donald Griffin. Dr. Griffin had discovered bat sonar when he was an undergraduate at Harvard in the late 1930s, and during WWII he worked for the military developing sonar. When I worked for Dr. Griffin, who was a wonderful boss, I learned to use a Korean War surplus tracking radar to track migrating birds, and I did that for 4 years, even being a co-author on one of his scientific papers about bird migration. I only took care of Dr. Griffin's bats, which were mostly kept at Rockefeller, a few times, feeding them meal worms when their regular caregiver was away. I had to get an anti-rabies shot before I was allowed to work with the bats.
Here's the Wikipedia article about Dr. Griffin, which is way too short to do him justice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Griffin
A book about his life has been written by Caroline Ristau, who was also at Rockefeller when I was: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/ebooks/32/
Susi Torre-Bueno is a current SD Hort board member-at-large, a past president, newsletter editor and was the 2012 Horticulturist of the Year.
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