‘We’ve got bats’: The community bringing New Zealand’s pekapeka into the spotlight

Billy Mclean knew nothing about bats. As a lifelong Kiwi, there was no reason for him to. Unlike in neighboring Australia and other parts of Oceania whose renowned flying foxes grow meter-long wingspans, Aotearoa New Zealand is famous for its birds, not bats. Mclean worked as an arborist in the Franklin area, an agricultural county south of Auckland on the North Island. He said he felt he knew everything about the local forest, until one night 23 years ago. As he headed home from a nighttime walk on his property, a shadow swooped from the arched tree canopy. He ducked — all his years spent in the trees, and he had never seen anything move like it. Mclean said it took a minute to register what he had seen. “As the picture develops, you get that classic crescent-shaped wing,” he told Mongabay by phone. “That’s when I knew. We’ve got bats.” That night sparked a passion for bats that Mclean has been pursuing ever since. After years of being “straight-up ridiculed” for trying to convince his community that these creatures lived in their backyards, many are starting to believe him. Today, he’s an active member with Finding Franklin Bats (FFB), a locally run research project teaching community members how to find, monitor and protect the overlooked bats that live in their backyards. (Left) Billy Mclean assists in weighing a long-tailed bat. (Right) Billy Mclean’s daughter practices using a handheld bat monitor to detect bat calls. Image courtesy of Finding Franklin…This article was originally published on [Mongabay](https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/)

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