Who We Are

Colleen Hope (nee Mainstone) has worked as a full time consultant ecologist since 2002.  She specialises in bat surveys as well as surveying and assessing sites for a variety of other protected species; she holds a Natural England Barn Owl survey licence. Colleen has designed and implemented bat surveys for wind farm, road and major town infrastructure schemes as well as numerous smaller scale redevelopment, barn conversion and domestic renovation projects.  Colleen is a qualified teacher and has run training courses in countryside management and bat surveying for over 20 years.

Paul Hope has worked as a freelance bat consultant since 2002. He has also worked on a variety of schemes including wind farms, large and smaller scale redevelopment sites.  Paul is currently studying part time for a PhD at Bristol University researching the hibernation ecology of bats.  Although Paul specialises in bat survey work he also undertakes reptile surveys.

Colleen & Paul hold licences to capture bats, use an acoustic lure and fit rings and radio trasmitters to bats.   They both have over 6 years experience using radio telemetary to study bat colonies as part of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and to provide management advice on conservation sites.  They have conducted research on most of the UK bat fauna with particular regard to Bechstein's, barbastelle and Natterer's bats.

Colleen & Paul are licenced Natural England trainers, training volunteers for Natural England's Roost Visitor Scheme.  They have also run numerous training courses for Hampshire Bat Group, local ecological consultancies and staff from Natural England and the New Forest National Park.  In 2005 they established a bat group research project to assess the distribution of barbastelle and Bechstein's bats throughout the New Forest National Park and have undertaken similar surveys throughout the County.  Link to to the radio tracking and research pages to find out more.