Petric wins Golden Bat Award  for conservation, mentoring

February 28, 2025

Highlands Field Site Director Rada Petric, was awarded the Golden Bat Award at the North Carolina Bat Working Group conference on  Nov. 21 at the Greensboro Science Center. The annual award recognizes her contribution to bat conservation in North Carolina and her commitment to mentoring students in the field.    

According to Petric, North Carolina is a special place to study bat activity with 13 out of the 17 bat species native to North Carolina located in the Highlands and surrounding area. Although they may get a bad reputation, bats provide essential ecosystem services. All bat species in North Carolina are insect-eating bats so they protect crops from insects, lowering the need to use pesticides.   

Bat populations in North Carolina face numerous threats, including white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that affects hibernating bats. According to Petric, for some species, western North Carolina has lost up to 98% of bat populations since 2011.   

“It was a significant and extremely devastating loss for several of our species,” Petric said.   

Due to the decline across its range, one of those species, the northern long-eared bat, was listed as federally endangered.  

White-nose syndrome isn’t the only threat to bats in North Carolina. An increase in wind turbines being built endangers migratory bats and birds that are unable to navigate wind farms and crash into the blades. Hoary and red bats are particularly at risk. Urbanization and anthropogenic noise are also a threat to bat activity.  

Conserving bats, one project at a time

Petric’s projects focus on understanding bat behaviors and the seasons and time of night in which bats are most active. Data collected is used to form baseline data sets, which can help monitor activity changes in response to population threats, build predictive models and inform policy decisions for state and federal agencies.   

One project, known as “BatPack,” is a community science initiative to collect bat activity data along the Appalachian trial. The project invites community members to participate in group trips to hike sections of the trail, which vary in ecosystem type, to learn why bats are important and monitor activity. Individuals can also participate outside of these guided trips.  

“We really want to collect as much information as possible to understand which species are present, how active are they, and if there’s some seasonality, as well as year differences among these sites,” Petric said.   

Another project compares bat activity along an urbanization gradient from disturbed sites like Walmart parking lots to undisturbed sites such as forested areas. Petric also investigates how bats respond to different types of noise by broadcasting high-frequency and audible sounds and recording changes in activity.   

The bats and mines project monitors activity in mines in western North Carolina and the Piedmont to collect data on the number of individuals, which species are in the mines and hibernation and activity patterns.  

More projects include working with other IE field sites and partner organizations to look at the effect of wind turbines on bat populations in coastal North Carolina and recording how bats respond to wetland restoration projects. According to Petric, bat activity has doubled after restoration at six sites in the mountains.    

“We’re really hoping we’re going to get at a year’s worth of data prior to some of the wind farms being built and that will allow us to have information during which specific seasons we see the highest activity and maybe also time of night,” Petric said.   

This information can help make decisions about turning wind farms off during specific periods of activity to limit bat-turbine encounters.  

The Sky Islands project explores bat activity on five mountains: Grandfather, Mitchell, Roan, and two mountain tops in the Great Smokey Mountains by using recorders placed at three elevations, high, mid, and low, on each mountain.   

“We’re doing these long-term monitoring projects to really understand how we are affecting bat activity and species in general. And then when we’re trying to make things better, are the bats responding to that?” Petric said.  

Petric strives to make the information collected available to everyone, not just the scientific community, by hosting information sessions and presentations for all age groups.   

Mentoring the next generation of researchers

But to her, the best part of these projects is student involvement.  

“I love working with students,” Petric said. “I love mentoring. I love giving them the opportunity and helping them build their self-confidence in whatever they’re doing.” 

Five students at the Highlands field site were involved with the projects as part of their independent research project, including two on the bats and mines project and three on the Sky Islands project. The students had the opportunity to present their work at the North Carolina Bat Working Group conference.   

“It is amazing to be able to bring students to conferences not just to give a poster presentation, but actually to give an oral presentation,” Petric said. “And they did such a phenomenal job.”  

The path to bats

Bats may be her focus now, but Petric wasn’t always planning to go into environmental research.  

Originally from Bosnia, Petric was separated from her parents at the age of 7 when a civil war broke out. Her mother was a prisoner of war. She stayed with her aunt during that time and found comfort in spending time in her aunt’s barn. Eventually, she moved to the United States.  

Petric attended UNC Greensboro with the intent to pursue medicine. When an adviser told her she needed laboratory experience, she joined the bats and mouse lab at UNCG. There, she experienced going out in the field for mark-recapture studies and first learned to study bats.  

“And I was like, wait a second, I can actually get paid to do this?” Petric recounted.  

She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in the same lab at UNC Greensboro. From there, Petric pursued bat research as an independent researcher before landing a position as a research assistant professor at the UNC Institute for the Environment to continue her work.   

Now in her role as the Highlands Field Site’s director, she’s continuing to contribute to conservation efforts and happily passing on her knowledge to the next generation of bat researchers. 

Story by Natalie Peoples
Natalie Peoples is a senior from Kensington, Maryland, pursuing a double major in journalism and environmental science. In addition to her work as a communications intern for the Institute for the Environment, she has experience in photojournalism and environmental research. Peoples plans to pursue a career in environmental journalism with a special interest in marine science.