1991 - 2006. EUROBATS celebrates its 15th anniversary

44
EUROBATS Publication Series No 1 Countries
Bat conservation
in the Czech Republic
by Eva Cepakova and Libuse Vlasakova
It can justly be said that among the coun-
tries of Europe the Czech Republic has
one of the longest traditions of bat re-
search. Modern Czech chiropterology dates
back to the 1940s and 19 0s, and is associated
especially with the names of Jiri Gaisler
and Vladimir Hanak. It is a striking fact that
extensive bat ringing began in this country
as early as 1948, and regular counts in hibernacula
have been carried out continuously
since 1969, becoming a unique source
of valuable long-term data on bat population
trends.
While the level of bat research has also
been kept high by succeeding generations
of scientists at universities, at the Czech
Academy of Science and in museums, bat
conservation in the Czech Republic has had
a less dynamic development. On the one
hand, basic legislative protection of bats
was endorsed in the 1960s and markedly
strengthened in 1992 by the new Act on
Nature Conservation and Landscape Protection,
which provided general protection
to all bat species and special protection
to 13 species. However, in actual practice,
conservation of bats and their roosts is something
that cannot be simply imposed by
law. In the wake of legislation, it is the enthusiastic
commitment of particular individuals
working for governmental authorities
and in NGOs that supply the driving force
when particular conservation cases need to
be solved.
Interestingly, the year 1991, when the EU-
ROBATS Agreement was signed by the first
Parties, also witnessed a major step forward
by bat conservation in the Czech Republic.
In that year, Ceska spolecnost pro ochranu
netopyru (CESON, “The Czech Bat Conservation
Trust”) was established. It was, and
still is, the only non-governmental organisation
in the country specialising in bats.
The society was founded by a group
of professional zoologists, and in the first
years of its existence the focus was mostly
on research activities such as co-ordination
of winter counts, but as the number of
CESON members gradually increased over
the years, the scope of the organisation has
grown accordingly. Nowadays, CESON has
Field trip of CESON members to National Nature
Reserve Krive jezero in South Moravia: Professors
Hanák and Horácek are preparing a net for bat
monitoring.