You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

It was 1 o'clock in the morning and Salita Guy was sitting at a picnic table in High

Park in Toronto.

A police officer wanted to know what she was doing, which wasn't going to be easy to

explain.

And as he's interrogating me and my field partner, asking us these questions, my shirt

starts to move because I had this colony of 25 or so bats down there.

Salita is an urban ecologist, someone who studies how plants and animals act in cities.

For Salita, that means catching bats, putting little radio collars on their backs to track

them, and then on cold nights, warming them back up so they can fly away.

Hence the shirt of writhing bats.

Finally, I guess he decided he wanted to address the elephant in the proverbial room, which

is, you know, man, your shirt is moving.

To which point I said, you know, yes officer.

I have 25 bats down there.

They're moving back up.

They're getting ready to fly.

And he was like, OK, that's it.

I've had no, I'm going to leave.

This is this too much for me.

And did he walk away or would have to do that?

He backed away slowly.

...