Kate
(she/her)
Volunteer - Research team
Kate
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Kate DerrickKate is originally from the UK, but has lived in France since 2001. Kate has been passionate about bats since uni : first an internship surveying roosts near Amiens, then going on to complete her Master's thesis on Geoffrey's bats in the Lorraine region of France in 2014. She is familiar with southern African species, having worked as a research assistant in Malawi in 2016, catching bats in Liwonde National Park, teaching volunteers and helping nearby villages with mitigation. Once her contract was finished she hopped on a 12-hour bus to make sure she didn’t miss seeing the greatest mammal migration on the planet - marvelling at millions of straw-coloured fruit bats flying overhead in Kasanka National Park, Zambia. After a brief stint working on sloths in Costa Rica, she realised how much bats were definitely for her when she came nose to nose with a tent-making bat in the forest.
Once she returned to France she missed the diversity of bats (as well as the African sunshine) so she soon signed up to be a volunteer at Bats without Borders, initially with the fundraising and science team, then on the education team. Kate used her bat knowledge as well as her creative side to help the education team create interactive lessons and activities for kids, and is one of our 'How to set up a bat group' trainers. She is currently living and working in Corsica, as bat research officer and communications manager at the Corsica Bat Group. While the island offers 22 bat species to study and protect, and beautiful scenery, she admits she still gets itchy feet… When she's not spending time on bats, or dreaming about travelling, Kate enjoys drawing, painting, yoga and reading which all seem like calm activities, but she still loves a good mosh at a metal concert! |
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