This Spring 2026 I attended the annual Southeastern Bat Diversity Network meeting (SBDN) and Colloquium on the Conservation of Mammals, which was held in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 11-13, 2026. SBDN is a great regional meeting, predominantly attended by state and federal agency biologists, environmental consultants, and academia. While bat-focused on the first day (the SBDN day), the second day is a mixture of bat and terrestrial mammal talks (the “Colloquium” day). It’s worth noting that this is a very student-friendly meeting and is a nice, low-stress way for students to get exposure to scientific conferences in a smaller and welcoming environment.
The first day starts with working groups, so attended the Eastern Spotted Skunk Cooperative Study Group & North American Weasel Working Group meeting. This was a great way to hear about all the regional research being done on spotted skunks, long-tailed weasels, and mink; these 3 species are of conservation concern in Florida and ones we actively work with FWC to deposit specimens in the mammal collection.
The afternoon of the first day focused on the SBDN business meeting, intermixed with great plenary talks about gaps in knowledge of Louisiana’s bat communities, wind energy development and bats in the southeast, and a remembrance of Troy Best, a well-known and well-respected mammalogist who had passed away the previous year. The evening is when we had our poster session and where I presented my poster on “Conservation through collections and collaboration” which highlighted the various ways our collection has worked with state and federal agencies through the years to document and preserve some of Florida’s most endangered and rare animals. The second day was a variety of talks on both bats and terrestrial mammals, including a plenary on Mammals of Louisiana, some great talks on Florida mink, and an interesting talk on the shifting distributions of manatees outside of Florida waters.
These meetings are short, lasting only 2 days, but they are jam-packed and a lot of fun. It was great having a chance to chat with agency biologists and meet students from throughout the southeast. And while I failed at taking pictures at my poster session, please enjoy this mammal-related gem from a walk on Royal Steet in the French Quarter.
Thank you to the FLMNH Travel Awards committee for providing the funds that made attending this meeting possible!
Verity Mathis is a Collection Manager of Mammalogy at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
The 2026 Spring Student Travel Awards are supported by a combination of the Special Projects Fund and department funds. If you would like to help support these funds for future CMSS awards, please go to: