Writing an article about Lalitsa’s activities can sometimes be a challenge. All the more so when your goal is not only to share the joy and vision of disseminating good practices, but also to describe the path that led to being awarded an important scientific grant by Wildlife Acoustics https://bit.ly/2RwGjia for our Citizen Science Programme on Bats in urban areas in Greece.
A good way to begin this article is by thanking all those who helped promote Lalitsa and contributed to a successful submission for the grant. Our thanks go to Maria G., our tireless translator in Brussels, to Artnoisedesigners for their unique creative solutions, to Konstantinos M. for providing website support free of charge, to Konstantinos and Frozenambrosia for successfully tackling procedural glitches with faraway United States, to Michalis S. who always “opens up new paths” in Greece and around the world, to the members of Lalitsa who encourage us to keep making a contribution to society, and, last but not least, to our member Dr. Ioanna Salvarina.
Ioanna, a post-PhD researcher at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), is scientific supervisor of Lalitsa’s Citizen Science Programme: The bats of urban areas in Greece. Her vision is to make a contribution to society and to the study of bats, and her contagious enthusiasm about the project convinced Lalitsa and its members to embrace it. Armed with her impressive scientific credentials and an excellent idea, Ioanna thoroughly prepared Lalitsa’s submission that convinced Wildlife Acoustics to «have a look» at a corner of Southeastern Europe and for the first time award a scientific equipment grant of $4,500 to a Greek project.
And this is how we got to running the Citizen Science Programme https://bit.ly/2s300pb between August and October 2019. The programme involves citizens based in different parts of Greece who sign up at info@lalitsa.com and express their willingness to do three short walks of 500 meters each in an urban environment, as required by the programme’s protocol. They locate and record the ultrasounds of bats thanks to a special microphone provided by Lalitsa free of charge. The microphone is easily adjusted on a cellphone and the only commitment of the participants is that they then forward the recordings to Lalitsa.
The implementation of the programme is made possible thanks to the voluntary work of participants and the Lalitsa team, but also of our scientific supervisor, Ioanna, who designed the project and sees it through pro bono.
Lalitsa is in charge of logistics and also covers the costs of office supplies and shipping of the microphones to the participants all over Greece. These costs are met thanks to the one-off membership fee of €30 paid by our supporters, but also thanks to donations of various amounts from citizens. Click here to see how you too can support Lalitsa’s work with a contribution of as little as €1 to our paypal account
You can also choose to channel your donation specifically to actions focusing on bats in Greece. If you donate €15 or more, you will receive a specially designed T-shirt to proudly wear and showcase our Citizen Science programme.
This is a project that ensures benefits for the community and reflects our will to make a contribution to society and biodiversity. Our participants have already made recordings all over Greece, from North to South, in Crete, Rhodes, Ioannina, Attica and Thessaloniki. Will you miss out on this opportunity to join them for a unique experience?
Let’s find out more about our actions on “Bats & Humans”
To get to know the Lalitsa community go to https://www.lalitsa.com/
* The photo is a kind complimentary offer by F. Katsigiannis/ www.greeknature.com