On a back trail at Zoo Miami, the silence broken only by an occasional braying zebra, wildlife veterinarian Frank Ridgely attaches a tiny camera to a painter’s pole and hoists it through the steamy morning air to what looks like a bird house atop a towering pole.
Inside he spies what few people have ever observed in real life: a half dozen Florida bonneted bats.
Once driven to the brink of extinction, the bats are now rebounding thanks to Ridgely, the director of the zoo’s conservation program, and a team at Bat Conservation International. In just a few years, by erecting specially-designed bat houses at the zoo and around Miami-Dade County, Ridgely and the team have documented what now stands as the world’s largest population of the very rare bat. At last count, they had identified more than 200 bats…