Missoula couple answers the call for conservation

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian


Tammy Mildenstein and her husband, Sam Stier, are among the many University of Montana graduates who have served in the Peace Corps since its inception in 1961, having worked in the Philippines on forest preservation and wildlife issues. Nationally, UM ranks No. 6 for producing Peace Corps volunteers among medium-size colleges.
TOM BAUER/Missoulian

When Tammy Mildenstein joined the Peace Corps in 1997, she didn't set out to save the flying foxes of Subic Bay in the Philippines.

She didn't even know what a flying fox was. Truth is, the University of Montana master's degree student had to consult a map to learn that Subic Bay is in the northwestern part of the country, on a big island that is home to one of the last remaining lowland tropical forests.

Nevertheless, Mildenstein and her husband, Sam Stier, embraced their Peace Corps assignment and headed off to the southeast Asian country for what they believed would be the required two-year commitment. Their initial mission: to help protect a last big swath of untouched jungle and to help foster local conservation of the wildlife found within its leafy borders.


They were ideal candidates for the challenge, said Steve Siebert, coordinator of UM's international resource management master's degree program.

Hardworking, personable and compassionate, he knew the couple would represent UM well, achieve their Peace Corps assignment and juggle their academic responsibilities. At the time, Sam was working toward a master's degree in resource conservation, and Mildenstein, a master's in wildlife biology.

Peace Corps volunteers only go into places where they are invited by the people and the communities they serve, Mildenstein said. Their invitation came by way of a local chapter of the World Wildlife Foundation, whose members asked the UM students to help promote wildlife conservation in the area because the forest had never been formally protected.

Pushing the issue - and threatening the forest - was the withdrawal of the U.S. Navy, which had leased the forest for a century, and had inadvertently protected the wildlife from hunters, development and logging.

“It was an open-ended request to help, and we weren't really sure where to start,” Mildenstein said.

At first the mission seemed daunting, but it wasn't long before their calling came into sharp relief. On a tour of the jungle, the sky suddenly filled with giant pterodactyl-like creatures the size of bald eagles.

It was the flying foxes - rare Old World fruit bats that have puppylike faces and 6-foot wingspans.

“They just blew us away. There were almost 30,000 bats,” Mildenstein said. “They swooped across the sky - I felt like we had dipped back into prehistoric time.”

Although the tour also included endangered parrots and threatened mangrove forests, it was the flying foxes that captured the scientists' attention.

“When we saw the flying foxes, we knew what we wanted to spend our time on,” she said. “They are a fascinating creature and we realized they were an ideal species for conservation focus in a place where hardly any conservation work is being done - they draw big crowds and that gives people a chance to talk about conservation issues and protecting species.”

With their work now identified, the couple set out to learn more about the largest flying mammal in the world, and in the process discovered that there's not a lot known about the species found in the Philippines.

“We found out that local management knew nothing about them except that they roosted in trees in the day and that they wanted to protect them. But they didn't know where to start other than to draw a circle around the roost site and prohibiting hunting around it,” Mildenstein said.

And so their research projects began.

With telemetry equipment, Mildenstein started tracking the day-in-a-life of a handful of collared bats - trying to unlock mysteries such as where and when they foraged, what they did at night and how far they flew. Meanwhile, Stier studied what they ate, what the bats' role in the ecosystem was, which trees they pollinated and what seeds they help disperse throughout the region.

When they weren't collecting data, the couple was working with surrounding communities, learning about the species' connection to the Filipinos as a food source, and putting together educational programs for tourists, school children and others who came to the forest.

Two years sped past, and by the time the volunteers were supposed to head back to UM they had enough data to defend their theses, but they felt there was still so much unfinished work left to do.

“Each of us felt the usefulness of our research would be dependent on training local managers and presenting talks to local stakeholders,” Mildenstein said.

They originally believed when their volunteer stint was finished, it would be the end of their Peace Corps experience. But one thing you learn in the Peace Corps is the art of flexibility, Stier said, and to count on one axiom: Things change. The couple never came home; instead, they signed up for a second tour and stayed in Subic Bay for two more years.

“We stayed on to create an audience for the research we did,” Mildenstein said.

“The bats depend on the forests and the Philippines had lost more than 95 percent of their original forest cover - what is left of these bats depends on this forest - and in a large way the forest depends on the bats,” Mildenstein said.

“We felt obligated to continue our research work.”

No one knew how many bats actually exist, Mildenstein said. Locals used to say “millions,” but counting parties she organized - which included hunters, community members and wildlife managers - counted far fewer numbers.

Such outings fomented a conservation ethos in the most unlikely communities - among the people who hunted and ate the creatures, Mildenstein said.

“I couldn't tell people there aren't as many as everyone thought, the only way for them to realize that was to be out there counting with us, and seeing for themselves.

“And that kind of community experience is a far better teacher than someone like me telling them.”

For Subic Bay, the best guess is that there are 30,000 flying foxes, but rigorous counting efforts are under way to better understand the population.

During their post-master's work, and after their four years with the Peace Corps, the couple began a counting project, which launched a nonprofit organization called Bat Count Philippines.

Although they have been back in Missoula since 2001, have earned their degrees and have a toddler, Mildenstein and Stier continue to spearhead the organization from their Rattlesnake home. And they have returned to the Philippines once a year ever since their tour was completed.

Bat Count's mission is carried out by six students who live near the Philippine forest and have been trained by wildlife managers. It is funded with the help of 27 partner nonprofit organizations

The interpretative center they created is still there, used to help explain the forest and its giant fruit-loving bats. The forest is now protected, and attracts more than 140,000 visitors a year.

“I do feel good about the work we accomplished,” Stier said. “And it certainly wasn't just us - we are just part of the long history of people who have worked for the forest's protection. We had the opportunity to work with a whole range of stakeholders - the government, villagers and an indigenous tribe - and we worked closely with everyone to make the place protected and sustainable.

“It's one of those extremely real and vivid experiences where you all get your hands dirty and get involved at the grass-roots level for a common goal,” he said. “In the end, that's really exciting and rewarding to be a part of.”

“I know we are both really thankful for the Peace Corps experience, and the opportunity UM gave us to advance our education. The experience changed our lives.”