Dr Tina Aughney

Dr Aughney works for BCIreland as a self-employed contractor. Tina has managed the All-Ireland Daubenton’s Waterways Survey since 2006 and the Brown Long-eared Bat Monitoring Scheme since 2007.

The All-Ireland Daubenton’s Waterways Survey has developed into a monitoring scheme with a large and committed volunteer base, under Tina’s management. By liaising on a county level with Heritage and Biodiversity Officers, promoting the project with local press and radio stations, and presenting training courses throughout the island, Tina has trained in excess of 1200 volunteers in the eight years of the scheme. This scheme continues to thrive with over 400 waterway sites surveyed across the island providing extensive information on the distribution of this species. This scheme represents the first large scale training and recruitment of bat volunteers including members of the general public in Ireland.

Tina has an honours degree in Environmental Science from NUI Galway and completed a Ph.D. thesis on the impact of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) on lowland farm habitats in the west of Ireland. For her extensive work in relation to bats and facilitating members of the public to become actively involved in the conservation of Irish bat species, Tina was awarded Distinguished Recorder of the Year 2011 by the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

For the last 12 years she has run her own ecological consultancy based in Co. Cavan, and has amassed a wealth of bat field experience, working on both private and public sector projects. She is an active volunteer for other national monitoring schemes including the Butterfly and Bumblebee Monitoring Schemes run by the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

She lives near Virginia and in her spare time can often be found cycling the roads near her house or swimming in Lough Ramor.

Dr Niamh Roche

Dr Roche works for BCIreland as a self-employed contractor. She has 10 years hands-on experience managing the Car-Based Bat Monitoring Scheme. Under her direction it has grown from a pilot project covering fewer than 10 survey squares, to an island-wide survey with a committed surveyor base. She has also presented BCIreland’s work at national and international conferences. From October 2010 to January 2012 she co-ordinated a joint project between BCIreland and the Centre for Irish Bat Research (CIBR) on bats in the Irish landscape, the results of which were published in January 2012. She was lead author of the book Irish Bats in the 21st Century. Niamh has also been the main organiser of several national bat conferences.

She has a degree in Environmental Biology from UCD and a Ph.D. from the University of Warwick which examined bat activity in broadleaved woodlands. For the last 16 years she has run her own ecological consultancy based in Co. Meath, and has amassed a wealth of bat field experience, working on both private and public sector projects.

She lives near Slane and loves cooking for family and friends with her own home-grown vegetables and fruit.