Most of my colleagues and I who work in production at Wisconsin Public Television will tell you that the greatest privilege of our jobs is the chance to meet interesting people doing interesting things.
I never met Dave Redell, but I, along with In Wisconsin viewers, got to know him through a number of stories produced by JoAnne Garrett and photographed by Frank Boll. Over the course of several years Jo and Frank followed Dave through nighttime woods and into dark caves to document his work, first when he was just a student on a research project, and through his time with the DNR on the front lines of the battle against the destructive white nose syndrome that still threatens some bats with potential extinction.
I knew from Jo’s updates, that while Dave was locked in this fight for bat health, his own well-being was being threatened by the cancer that eventually took his life earlier this month. You can read an obituary here, and below watch one of Jo and Frank’s stories about Dave and his work with bats.
Jo and Frank have retired from WPT, but both were eager to share their memories when I contacted them. Those words follow the story below.
Watch Bats 4 on PBS. See more from In Wisconsin.
From JoAnne:
Wisconsin’s bats had no better friend. Tireless, committed, Dave worked through his illness to save this animal. He deserves truckloads of awards.
I will always be grateful to him for enhancing my understanding of the world of night. There is a amazing universe of animals that clock in as the sun goes down. And I’ll be grateful that, due to Dave, I have a better appreciation of the animals that fill our skies. Birds, bats, unseen, they move in clouds above us. When I look up now I never see the skies as empty.
Wisconsin has suffered an awful loss. Do what you can to help out Dave’s Bat foundation. Godspeed to Dave, deepest condolences to his family and his friends. And a thousand thanks to this dedicated scientist. (Note: information on donations can be found in the obituary.)
From Frank:
We knew this was coming but always hoped he could beat it again. We followed him all the way from an undergraduate student to his PhD. It’s a huge loss to the scientific community and to our state and the world as his research was timely to document baseline information on healthy bats before the white nose virus reaches this area.
Maybe it was our first time at the Neda mine hibernaculum, we had taped well past midnight getting fantastic footage of swarming bats and it was finally time to head back to Madison. He was almost out of gas and we decided to follow him to make sure he would make it to an open gas station. He fueled up and then came out of the convenience store with three huge corn dog types sandwiches to eat on the way back since we hadn’t stopped for dinner as it was getting dark and prime time for bat activity. His car was jammed full of papers and equipment with just enough room to squeeze in those extra sandwiches as he started in on the first one while driving away. The life of an undergraduate student!
Dave really introduced me to infrared taping of bats. By coincidence we both had the same type of personal Digital 8 camcorder and he showed me some auxiliary infrared lighting units he was using. I purchased more and we combined them to light up more of the night sky in later shoots.
He always made sure we were at ease in his bat environments and enjoyed showing everyone their amazing abilities of sonar flying to avoid all obstacles, including our moving bodies, while searching for their insect meals. I think it was another shoot when he took us into the mine entrance thru a huge culvert that we could almost stand up in. I was shooting with infrared light so the bats wouldn’t be disturbed by us and I could see many bats flying all around us but no one else could see them. On the way out Jo was walking behind sound recordist Tom Naunas when some bats whizzed by her ears and face and she literally jumped up on Tom’s back, much to his surprise but to his credit he didn’t drop her in the water below. Dave enjoyed showing us this wonderful place and laughed as hard as we did when we got out.
It was one of my greatest challenges and pleasures to capture part of his research to share with WPT viewers over the years. Everyone on the various crews assembled to cover these stories came to appreciate and enjoy these special times and places when Dave opened this small window into this huge nocturnal world of the bat. Maybe his intensive research will help fill up that huge hole in the sky for many nights to come.
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