7th SECEMU Bat Research and Conservation Conference

The Gibraltar Museum is organising the 7th SECEMU Bat Research and Conservation Conference at the University of Gibraltar on 7th & 8th December 2018.

SECEMU is a charity which has been active in bat research and conservation in Spain since 1989 but has recently opened up to accept members from Portugal and Gibraltar with the intention of creating a pan-Iberian association. In this light, they held the last biennial conference in Vairão, Portugal in 2016 which attracted almost 100 delegates from Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar with a common goal: an interest in bats and the unique characteristics of the Iberian populations. These included researchers, ecologists, conservationists, managers and students not only from Iberia but also from across Europe and North Africa. This last conference was the first SECEMU event to have been held outside Spain in an Iberian context and we are delighted to announce that Gibraltar has been chosen as the host city for this year’s conference.

We have invited ecologist Dr Rodrigo Medellín of the National Autonomous University of Mexico to be our keynote speaker for this event which will take the form of a free public lecture within the conference proceedings at the University.

Dr Medellín is a big name in wildlife conservation, particularly in the field of bats, jaguars, bighorn sheep and ocelots among others. He works at the Institure of Ecology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and has worked for the American Museum of Natural History and been an ambassador for the International Union for Conservation of Nature. He was recently featured in a fantastically vivid BBC Natural World documentary entitled ‘The Bat Man of Mexico’ and narrated by Sir David Attenborough which recorded Dr. Medellín’s life work protecting bats across Mexico.