Lost Wonders by Tom Lathan

Author:Tom Lathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Macmillan

DESPITE EVERYTHING, WHEN it comes to the pipistrelle, Lindy Lumsden feels responsible. ‘When you do this sort of work, trying to protect a species, and you’re there on the day it actually goes extinct and you can’t stop it . . . there’s just no worse feeling in the world,’ she says. ‘I should have been able to stop it.’

It’s difficult to hear this from someone like Lumsden, who I know, from speaking with her and others involved, gave more than anyone to try and save the pipistrelle. But as I listen to her list the things she feels she should have done – lobbying the government harder, speaking up more, writing reports more quickly, recommending captive breeding earlier – it’s impossible not to think about the people who were in power, who could have heeded her warnings but, for whatever reason, chose not to. Those in Lumsden’s position often blame themselves for the extinctions they witness, even when it is clear to everybody else that they deserve this burden the least.

‘I thought about giving up working in conservation after [the extinction],’ says Lumsden, ‘but I made the decision not to, and it really strengthened my resolve to try and help other species, so that it doesn’t happen again.’

A few days after we speak, Lumsden is back in the field, tracking southern bent-wing bats, a critically endangered Australian microbat. Recently, she and a team of other bat experts and enthusiasts succeeded in having this species designated ‘Australian Mammal of the Year’, meaning it has received increased press coverage and that there is more awareness of its conservation. It is a moment that reveals how ecologists often have to be chameleons, dipping into other professions in order to save species. In this instance Lumsden is, in a sense, a publicist, all in the name of bat conservation. Later, she shares some footage from a recent expedition of a bent-wing bat soaring through the night, barrelling after moths and other flying insects. Momentarily, it gets away from her, disappearing from view, and the air is still and silent; and then it comes back into the frame.

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