The weeklong Bureau of Land Management’s annual Bat Beauty Contest closes, appropriately enough, on Halloween this year. Voting has taken place on the BLM’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The competition features photos of bats taken primarily by government biologists who survey and work with bats on public lands in 12 western states, including Oregon. There are 15 species of bats native to Oregon, including eight whose numbers are declining or at-risk, according to the state’s wildlife agency. 

Bats from Oregon have won the contest for two years in a row. Last year’s winner was a Townsend’s big-eared bat photographed by Emma Busk, a wildlife technician in the Ashland field office in the Medford district of the Bureau of Land Management. Busk entered photos of two bats in this year’s competition, including a bat named Hoary Potter and the Guano of Fire which made it to the final round of judging. She joins us to talk about Oregon bats and the vital roles they play in our ecosystems.