As you may know, bats are, in many cultures and contexts, undeservedly maligned. The COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated that. Most likely, a species of horseshoe bat was the original reservoir for the viral ancestor to SARS-CoV2, which causes COVID. But the media and even the scientific literature have widely misrepresented the role of bats in COVID-19. In our latest paper, we used Q-methodology to investigate stakeholders think about the conservation and management of bats in Singapore – especially where they converge and diverge on the issue. We ultimately uncovered three unique “discourses” or viewpoints. One viewpoint amounts to: we don’t need a reason to conserve bats – conservation is a moral imperative and all species have the right to exist. A second viewpoint amounts to: we shouldn’t conserve bats because they’re dangerous and pose a public health threat. A third amounts to: this population should simply be taught to appreciate all biodiversity – not just bats – and community scientists have a role to play in this. All stakeholders seem to agree that the pandemic may have made the population more aware of bats generally, and potentially more afraid of them. As such, public education is critical, but this should be based on an empirically derived understanding of the population’s bat-related attitudes. Read the paper here.