Working at night is a challenge that technology has improved over the past decades allowing us to gain a better insight into the ecology and behaviour of nocturnal mammals. However, our understanding of the night is always growing, and basic rules are often ignored by many in research from methodological approaches and result bias. This introductory workshop will show you how you can improve your nocturnal mammal detection (including bats) and follows as well as improving animal welfare standard during night surveys. This knowledge does not only apply to research but also to practical conservation efforts. Ecotourism promoting night activities such as night walk, car spotting or even animal watching are harmful for wildlife.

During this workshop you will be provided with a theoretical and practical overview of recent advances to study nocturnal mammals from five years of research in Malaysia but also based on ten years of nocturnal mammal research worldwide. Firstly, we will provide a hands-on introduction to nocturnal mammal biology and why it is important to consider it when doing research. We will then discuss how current research planning and methods impacts animal welfare and how we can mitigate this. We will look how study design can also affect the results of your research and how certain bias can make your entire research results incorrect. This knowledge will then be applied to improving conservation effort by promoting guidelines for nocturnal mammal watching and nocturnal mammal activities in general.

Different technologies exist to study nocturnal mammals such as red light, thermal imaging, camera trapping and sound recorder. We will give an overview of each of them and details about their usefulness, project cost savings, streamlined survey planning, increased survey capacity (without extra surveyors!) and improved health & safety conditions.

This will be followed by a practical night training to test the different equipment and experience its effects on wildlife.

At the end of the workshop, participants will know: (i) How to properly identify challenges to their study subject; (ii) How to adapt their research method to reduce bias; (iii) What technology is more suited to their goals; and (iv) How promoting improved guidelines for nocturnal mammal watching activities increase conservation outputs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~