Gates at abandoned mines protect bat colonies, public safety
AZ Game and Fish biologists install structures to conserve, protect bats OATMAN, Ariz. — The sun is already baking off what’s left of the warm morning air, when Arizona Game and Fish bat biologist Joel Diamond carefully walks to the edge of a loose mound of gravel, and tosses a rock into the abandoned mineshaft below. He listens carefully as it bounces off the wall of the decades-old mineshaft, again and again as it quickly disappears into the abyss. He notes that the absence of sound from the final bounce — about 100 feet below — serves as proof that…