The European Bat Night is organized with the goal of raising public awareness of the endangered condition and the need to protect the bat as their number in the world is decreasing. Many European species are today endangered or about to be extinct, so each of them is protected at the level of the EU Habitats Directive. With 35 recorded species so far, Croatia is one of the richest countries in Europe according to the number of bats. All those species are strictly protected by the Nature Protection Act, while 17 species are listed in the Red List of the endangered mammals in Croatia.
On that occasion, there will be various activities with the purpose of familiarizing the public with the role of the bat in ecological systems, the importance of protection, the reasons of their endangered condition and the need to eliminate the prejudices, causing unnecessary fear in many people.
The visitors can expect educational workshops about bats and a series of playrooms intended for young visitors. The associations dealing with the study and protection of bats (HBDS and BIUS) will also present their work. There will also be a video-presentation by Tanguay Stoeckle, Au Rythme des Chauves-Souris, which will give the visitors a chance to see the study of bats; they will be able to learn something about the bat diet, and after sunset there will be an organized search for bats under expert guidance with the help of ultrasound detectors.
After the central celebration of the European Bat Night on Saturday, 11th September, during the week from the 13th till the 17th September, the Natural History Museum in Rijeka will organize educational nature-artistic workshop on the subject of Bats, intended for elementary school junior-grade pupils. There the pupils will be introduced to the constitution of bats and their way of life, the most common species of bats in Croatia and the dangers threatening them, while in the second part of the workshop they will use the acquired knowledge in a creative manner through various artistic techniques which will be used to make models of bats.
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