Team Bio

The team has experience with bats and animal-human conflict resolution. Dr Emma Stone, founder of ABC is supervising the project in Malawi and has undertaken a similar study within the UK. Dr Richard Yarnell, Associate Professor in Ecology at the School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences (NTU) has experience working with human-wildlife conflict and has conducted much of his research in Africa. Angelena is currently and MRes student at NTU and Amelia graduated in 2017.

Amelia Reddish

I have received a first-class honors degree in Zoology at the University of Reading; an MRes in Animal Behaviour at the University of Nottingham; and recently graduated with an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation at Nottingham Trent University. In addition to my academic achievements I have volunteered extensively and my passion for wildlife extends beyond my education. Specifically to bats, I frequently volunteer with Nottinghamshire Bat Group and I am currently training for a VBRB license and am a registered bat carer with the Bat Conservation Trust.

I aspire towards a career in research and hope to do a PhD in the future. My research interests are broad, however I am particularly interested in bats as study species. The diversity of bats is fascinating and offers endless opportunity for research.

I am interested in research surrounding human-wildlife conflict. As the human population continues to rise and urban development expands human-wildlife conflict will inevitably increase, it is therefore vital that solutions are sought. Human-wildlife conflict is a heavily researched topic, however relatively, there is very little research on human-bat conflict.

Angelena Efstathiou

I am currently studying an MRes in Endangered Species Recovery and Conservation at Nottingham Trent University and an Ecologist at FPCR Ltd.

I am passionate about conservation and the environment, having worked for various environmental NGO's over the last decade. I have also been an active member of Nottinghamshire Bat Group since joining and I am now Chair of the Group.

I have five years of field experience with bats including the use of harp traps; mist nets; radio tagging; radio tracking; and acoustic surveys. As an Ecologist over the last four years I have experience of internal and external surveys for bats and am a competent bat worker. I lead on training activities for others through my various roles.

The reason for wanting to undertake this study was to better understand the implications of a process routinely used by people to exclude bats for which little published information exists. Even in the UK, roost exclusions are performed as part of derogation licenses, which assume bats to be able to find alternative roosts. This is therefore thought to have little effect on the favourable conservation status of the species.

I have always wanted to pursue research and the opportunity to investigate a topic which could have implications on industry standards was one not to turn down. I wish to better understand the process and contribute to the data available. Ever since my first bat survey, I have become very fascinated with them, despite making up a quarter of a mammal species there are still so many questions to answer about bats!

Emma

I founded ABC and the umbrella charity Conservation Research Africa (www.conservationresearchafrica.org). I am an Honorary Research Fellow at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol UK, and am based in Malawi directing all our programmes. I have worked in Africa since 1998 when I conducted biodiversity research for three years in the remote Kafue National Park, Zambia, and then worked in a wildlife centre managing community education and outreach projects.

My research focus is applied conservation biology with a strong emphasis on evidence based conservation, in particular human-wildlife conflict management, mitigating anthropogenic impacts on the environment, and assessing patterns and drivers of diversity and abundance. I have been conducting bat research in Africa (particularly Zambia, Malawi and South Africa) since 1998 and conducted my PhD research in the Bat Ecology and Bioacoustics Lab at the University of Bristol, UK on the impact of development on bats with a
focus on the ecological impacts of artificial lighting.

I developed a novel field-based experimental approach which demonstrated the first evidence of negative impacts of high pressure sodium and LED street-lights on bats. I have secured over £1.5million in research
grants since 2005 and published (464 citations, H-Index 7) in high impact journals including Current Biology and Global Change Biology and Proceedings of the Royal Society B.