10 million bats. One small Park. We need your help!

Right now, ten million straw-coloured fruit bats are filling the skies over the compact Kasanka National Park in Zambia.

Over the last 40 years, the Kasanka Trust has built the park from a forgotten dot on the map into a globally renowned protected area. After some very difficult years, new management has just arrived, and they found the park in a bad way; vehicles broken down, infrastructure decayed and law enforcement stretched to the limits.

The Zambian government has recently given the Trust a new window to re-establish it's management of the park and made a much stronger commitment to working with us in the field. This is a real chance to turn Kasanka around, but we can only take it on with proper funding. We just can’t afford to lose this opportunity!

Every year, just before the rains, the bats arrive at Kasanka from across Central Africa. It is known to be the largest mammal migration on Earth by weight and number, outdoing the Serengeti’s wildebeest! Each night the bats fly out to feed, spreading seeds and keeping the surrounding forest alive. Kasanka is a network of rivers, swamps, plains, woodlands and forests hosting a broad diversity of wildlife, is the best place to see the aquatic sitatunga antelope and a birdwatcher’s paradise.

Your donation will help get vehicles back on the road, support the scouts who protect the park, get it ready for visitors, and work with local communities to protect the forest the bats depend on.

I’m Frederik, a Biological Sciences student at the University of Exeter, on placement in conservation in Zambia, and I’m helping Kasanka get back on its feet. Please help keep one of nature’s great spectacles alive.