Join the Nightlife: 2024 Recap
October 31, 2024
Thanks to all the Join the Nightlife: Bats and Agriculture attendees who joined us out in the field this year! Guests got hands-on experience with
While leading news media, from The Wall Street Journal to Time magazine, were maligning bats with an unprecedented flood of scary stories threatening terrible disease pandemics, Merlin was busy setting the record straight.
At the annual banquet of the National Speleological Society, in New Mexico, he thanked members for their invaluable service to bats over the past 40 years, especially mentioning their volunteered help in reporting key bat caves in need of protection, designing and building the world’s finest protective gates at hundreds of locations, and helping educate cave owners regarding bat values and needs. He also credited them with leadership essential to recovery of the federally endangered gray bat (Myotis grisescens) and thanked them for their generous help during the white-nose syndrome (WNS) crisis.
Merlin has since agreed to collaborate with National Speleological Society leadership on behalf of improving management policies to better protect important caves for both bats and cavers.
As the featured speaker for the Association of Medical Illustrators 2017 annual conference, Merlin was asked to share his “Win friends, not battles” conservation philosophy. Of course, they also enthusiastically learned a lot about bats as well! The group’s real mission is medical education, making them an ideal audience at a time when there are so many gross exaggerations linking bats to disease.
Many stayed to ask questions for an extra 45 minutes. At a time when so many disagreements become too confrontational to permit reasoned progress, Merlin’s positive approaches struck a special cord.
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Thanks to all the Join the Nightlife: Bats and Agriculture attendees who joined us out in the field this year! Guests got hands-on experience with
Supporter and friend of MTBC, Australian conservation and animal welfare photojournalist Doug Gimesy, had his images recognized in two categories at the recent Siena International
Fieldwork requires a lot of equipment, but photography requires even more! During our June 2024 photography workshop, we transported over 100 lbs. of equipment —
Within the dim limestone passageways of Caverna Santa Catalina, the air came alive with bats. I stood in awed silence, taking in the rush of
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Michael Lazari Karapetian has over twenty years of investment management experience. He has a degree in business management, is a certified NBA agent, and gained early experience as a money manager for the Bank of America where he established model portfolios for high-net-worth clients. In 2003 he founded Lazari Capital Management, Inc. and Lazari Asset Management, Inc. He is President and CIO of both and manages over a half a billion in assets. In his personal time he champions philanthropic causes. He serves on the board of Moravian College and has a strong affinity for wildlife, both funding and volunteering on behalf of endangered species.