Wanderers downtown Friday night found it hard to miss the bat signal projected on the face of the Hippodrome State Theatre.
That night it wasn’t a distress call for Batman but a signal from the Lubee Bat Conservancy.
According to its website, the conservancy, an international, nonprofit organization whose mission is to save bats through research and conservation breeding, put on a series of engagements throughout the weekend called Spot the Bat to strengthen public awareness of the organization’s efforts and bat conservation in general.
On Friday, the organization illuminated the Hippodrome from 9 p.m. to midnight with its bat signal, a green circle that contained the black outline of a cartoon bat and read “Lubee BAT CONSERVANCY” and “SpotTheBat.com.”
“The idea is to kind of call out to all the bat-friendly folks in Gainesville,” said Anthony Mason, a development coordinator at Lubee Bat Conservancy.
The organization also recruited about 16 volunteers to dress in glossy black bat wings from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and go about their daily lives, creating a buzz for Lubee among the gameday preparations.
The volunteers, who were Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo students and conservancy staff members, formed a cloud of human bats.
Curious passers-by asked the volunteers about Spot the Bat and were entered to win a private tour at Lubee if they uploaded a picture with the group to Instagram tagged with @lubeebatconservancy and the hashtag #SpotTheBat.
Jenna McMichael and Alex Henwood, keepers at the Lubee Bat Conservancy, said they both think the event achieved that goal.
Bats are important in their ecosystems because of pollination and seed dispersal and are not to be feared.
Bats are responsible for 95 to 98 percent of rainforest regrowth, McMichael said.
“We think that being part of the local community is really going to drive change for the species,” Mason said.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 9/18/2014 under the headline "See bat symbols in the sky? No, it’s not Batman this time"]
