Les Chauves Souris D’algerie, ALGERIAN BAT GROUP recently held a bat workshop in Algeria, hosted by Professor Mourad Ahmim of the University of Bejaia. The workshop focused on the importance of bats and their impact on the national economy.
Merlin was asked to provide this 8-minute video introduction for workshop participants, giving them an overview of bat values and exhorting them to protect the bats of Algeria (video with French subtitles here):
The workshop resulted in the first protection of a cave in Aokas, Algeria. The Cave of Aokas is now officially protected by a communal decree in memory of a former leader in European bat conservation, and much valued friend of Merlin’s, the late Professor Jiri Gaisler who discovered the cave and first studied its bats.
Bats found living in this now protected cave include Geoffroy’s bat (Myotis emarginatus), Felten’s myotis (Myotis punicus), Long-fingered bat (Myotis capaccinii), Common bent-wing bat (Miniopterus schreibersii), Greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), Lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros), Mediterranean horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus euryale), Blasius’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus blasii), and Mehely’s horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus mehelyi).
