1991 - 2006. EUROBATS celebrates its 15th anniversary

80
EUROBATS Publication Series No 1 Countries
pipistrellus / pygmaeus, Nyctalus noc­
tula.
• Other species were identified as having
have priority for further observations
and research: Pipistrellus nathusii, Bar­
bastella barbastellus and Myotis dasyc­
neme.
The monitoring, covering the whole of Ro-
mania, involves 3 underground sites (three
caves in the Eastern Carpathians, 1 in the
Western Carpathians, 17 in Dobrogea and
the Southern Carpathians).
To implement the NBMP, it has been
necessary to develop and maintain a network
of volunteers all over Romania. This
has been achieved by organizing talks to
University students, speleological clubs,
environmental protection agencies, environmental
NGOs and audiences at National
Parks; while volunteers’ identification
skills have been improved through training
courses, workshops and field excursions.
Education
Training of trainers: Two workshops, on
National Bat Monitoring and Bat Detector
Techniques, were organised by BCT and
RBPA (at the Danube Delta, Romania, 2002;
at Rimetea, Romania, 2003).
Volunteer recruitment: 23 classes were
held in 11 cities; in the last three years there
have been eight workshops. A total of 476
people (entered on the database of volunteers)
currently (October 200 ) make up the
NBMP volunteer force network; 136 of them
have taken part in surveys and delivered
data.
By 200 a countrywide network of + local
bat groups was established, providing a
Students on a bat-workshop in the field. © RBA
potential framework on which to build volunteer
surveys. There are NBMP volunteers
in all regions of Romania.
Besides the National Bat Monitoring
Programme, our NGO coordinates the following
activities:
• a survey of 40 underground habitats that
are important shelters for bats; it is proposed
to include these habitats in the
Natura 2000 network and in the RBPA
database (the project carried out in 2002
– 2004 yielded exclusive data from 273
records of 22 bat species in 93 caves);
• making an inventory of building- and
forest-dwelling bats; case studies of potential
habitats for bats;
• preparing a proposal for concrete
measures to protect habitats that suffer
disturbance from human activities
(placement of warning notices at cave
entrances, closing of threatened caves,
rescue of bat colonies or individuals);