Project update 23: Project Pteropus wrap-up

Our Fruit Bat Fundraiser by Project Pteropus ends today – and we managed to raise RM43,790, well beyond our original target of RM30,000!!! We’re so deeply grateful to everyone who supported this initiative – those who donated funds to help us complete our research next year, those who bought merchandise to help us widen our public outreach impact this year, and those who helped spread the word. Thank you for helping us to make this fundraiser such a success.

While our public outreach initiatives also end today, the additional funds we’ve raised will allow us to extend this project for an additional 6 months into 2022 in order to complete our durian pollination research that was negatively impacted and delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During this extended time period we’ll also be able to finish up our work on monitoring and protecting flying fox populations, which was also delayed due to the pandemic. So we’re on track to successfully complete and wrap up this project as originally planned – just on a slightly later timeline!

Take a peek into the team and our work on fruit bat conservation that you’re helping to support:

Publication update 25: Bane or Blessing? Reviewing Cultural Values of Bats across the Asia-Pacific Region


Our inaugural publication from Phase 2 of Project Pteropus has been published by the Society of Ethnobiology! Led by Mary-Ruth as first author and Sheema as senior author, this literature review was a regional collaboration involving 13 co-authors from 9 countries across the Asia-Pacific, including Malaysia (Peninsular and Sarawak), China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Samoa. It’s fully open-access, which means you can both read it online or download the PDF, completely for free: https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-ethnobiology/volume-41/issue-1/0278-0771-41.1.18/Bane-or-Blessing-Reviewing-Cultural-Values-of-Bats-across-the/10.2993/0278-0771-41.1.18.full
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Bat Week 2020: The Secret Life of Durian Trees

As part of our Project Pteropus outreach efforts, we teamed up with insanely talented Malaysian artist Novia Shin, and Penang-based production house Hatchtag Media, to create a short animated video on bat pollination of durian: ‘The Secret Life of Durian Trees’, based on the results of Dr. Sheema‘s PhD research on Tioman Island.

This video was first released during last year’s Bat Week, but was a nominee for the Best Animation Award at the recent 13th International Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival (KLEFF 2020). If you haven’t seen this already, watch it to see what happens in a durian orchard at night! And, it’s also available in Malay and Mandarin!

Facebook: @novia.shin @HatchTag @KLEFFMY
Instagram: @novia_shin @kleffmy
Twitter: @KLEFFMY

Friends in Malaysia: this is your last chance to snag some bat swag by following us on social media, sharing any of our #BatWeek2020 posts with the correct 3 hashtags, and tagging at least 3 friends! We’ll start picking winners after today! Hope you all had a Happy Bat Week and will continue to help us celebrate bats long after this! 🦇🦇🦇