Our guest speaker this month Maree Treadwell Kerr, an ecologist and wildlife communicator in Kuranda, Far North Queensland (FNQ).
As many of you know, I spent time with Maree over Easter, learning all about bats and this session will be a Q and A between us both.
Maree is president of Bats and Trees Society of Cairns an NGO conserving bat biodiversity in FNQ and coordinates the Spectacled Flying-fox Recovery Team. Maree has been working in conservation and community engagement around bats for over 30 years and co-convenes the Australasian Bat Society’s Flying-fox Expert Group and coordinates their Australasian Bat Night program, a project comprising a series of local community events designed to raise awareness of bats held each autumn across Australasia.
You can see why I call her BAT WOMAN!
Maree is also vice-chair of Wildlife Tourism Australia and a state representative for Interpretation Australia. She's passionate about the role that nature tourism and interpretation can play in conservation of wildlife, particularly “problematic” taxa like bats which are so important to us but have an image problem.
