ИСТИНА

All bat species found in Moscow are included in the Moscow Red Data book. Bats became rare due to many reasons including the lack of food, summer shelters and hibernacula and also the negative attitude towards “awful beasts” and “vampires”. The Rehabilitation center for the winter housing of bats of Moscow was created in 2017 in the Moscow Zoo. The Center’s work is aimed at housing bats who need help and rehabilitation at winter, scientific data gathering and public education. We take bats who were found during cold period and brought by people to the zoo, provide them veterinary help and hibernation till spring when bats return to nature. The methods were based on the analysis of the experience of captivity and rehabilitation of bats. For 2 years we gave help to more than 200 bats successfully released into the wild in spring. We note the exact place and circumstances of each bat found to study the bat distribution in the city, the species diversity and their sex and age structure. All released bats are ringed with individual rings, the data is given to the Bat Specialist Group at the Zoological Museum of MSU. One of ringed bats was recaptured the next year. It was shown that the distribution of bat captures is rather random, and the number of meetings varies in months. A new species for Moscow was found – Myotis dasycneme (no other confirmed finds for the last 100 years). Public education includes special page on the Moscow zoo site with different information about bats and our Center, social networks, public lectures both in the zoo and out (schools, libraries, clubs) and workshops, interviews and video recording. We advise and coordinate the activities of volunteers who do bat rehabilitation by themselves (including other cities of Russia), help them to receive rings. The activity of the Center is constantly expanding, the number of citizens’ contacting is increasing, and new volunteers appear ready to work with bats by themselves.