The public is invited to a “Bats and Brews” event in honor of Bat Week. The event will take place at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company’s Asheville brewery Thursday, Oct. 26 from 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 pm.

The event is organized by partners from the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, University of North Carolina, and the North American Bat Monitoring Program.

During the event, biologists will discuss their efforts to understand, protect, and conserve bat populations in North Carolina, the Southeast and across North America. Through hands-on demonstrations, attendees will experience how scientists (including community scientists) study bats and work collectively to understand where bats are, in what numbers, and how populations fare through time amid mounting threats like infectious diseases, climate change, habitat loss and more.

The evening’s event will feature a screening of the documentary film, “In Echo All About: A Documentary About Big Battles for Little Bats” by Nicholas Mullins; a presentation from Susan Loeb, bat research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station; and closing remarks from the National Park Service reflecting on bats as “vital signs” of healthy, functioning ecosystems.

Activities will include trivia, demonstrations, and opportunities to engage with bat experts on the science of these mysterious mammals —what do people learn from bats when they listen to their echolocation calls? What does it look like when scientists gear-up to study cave-hibernating bats? What can people do in their communities to celebrate and support bats? And other topics.