fieldnotes

Saving the Fijian Free-tailed Bat

Student Scholar Siteri Tikoca works to protect an Endangered species

by Lynn Davis

Siteri Tikoca collecting samples from a Fijian free-tailed bat at the Nakanacagi Bat Sanctuary in Fiji.

Photo: David Waldein

The IUCN first listed this species as Endangered in 2008, with estimates of only 5,000 to 8,000 Fijian free-tailed bats remaining.

Siteri Tikoca is purposeful, generally undeterred by challenges, and a scientist deeply invested in saving the Fijian free-tailed bat (Chaerephon bregullae), which is listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). She is a Bat Conservation International (BCI) Student Scholar, as well as the recipient of BCI’s Women in Science award.

When the pandemic hit, Tikoca found herself stuck in South Australia, where she is working on her doctorate degree at the University of Adelaide. During this time, she coordinated more Zoom calls than she can count, all while preparing to return to her homeland of Fiji to resume her field work as soon as she could.

This summer, Tikoca will be covering a lot of ground. She’ll be traveling to the Nakanacagi Bat Sanctuary, home to the only known maternity roost of Fijian free-tailed bats, which is located on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second largest island. She will also travel to the Natewa Peninsula in the southeastern part of Vanua Levu, an area of exceptional biodiversity in tropical lowlands, before moving on to Taveuni Island, a lush, sparsely populated island inhabited mostly by Indigenous Fijians.

Fijian free-tailed bats have been observed on both the Vanua Levu and Taveuni islands, but nowhere else on Fiji’s hundreds of islands. The bats have been seen foraging in the forest canopy, in coastal habitats, and along the edge of cloud forests. The IUCN first listed this species as Endangered in 2008, with estimates of only 5,000 to 8,000 Fijian free-tailed bats remaining.

“My goal is to better understand the connectivity of subpopulations. We can’t rule out the possibility of new caves this species may be using—caves we don’t know about yet, caves we might need to manage.”
—Siteri Tikoca

In 2017, employed as an Endangered Species Program Manager for the nonprofit organization NatureFiji, Tikoca worked alongside BCI doing initial surveys of the Nakanacagi Cave. She also worked with BCI to build important partnerships that ultimately helped create a bat sanctuary surrounding Nakanacagi Cave.

This summer, Tikoca will be engaging with the stakeholders she worked with on Zoom calls: landowners, government officials, and NGO partners. She will also be compiling a database of audio files and tissue samples of bats from the varied locations to better assess and document how Fijian free-tailed bats interact with their habitats.

“We know the bats are flying between locations and across water,” Tikoca says. “My goal is to better understand the connectivity of subpopulations. We can’t rule out the possibility of new caves this species may be using—caves we don’t know about yet, caves we might need to manage.”

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