Kirk Taray, a bat ecologist, detangles a bat caught in a mist net that was set up in front of a building with a bat roost at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños, in Los Baños, Laguna province, on February 19, 2021. "With the ongoing pandemic, there is more caution taken into consideration while studying bats. Several measures and protocols are established to protect both the researchers and the bats. Also, the community quarantine and travel restrictions added difficulty, especially in accessing potential areas of study," Taray says. #

Phillip Alviola, a bat ecologist, holds a bat that was captured from Mount Makiling in Los Baños on March 5, 2021. "What we're trying to look into are other strains of coronavirus that have the potential to jump to humans," Alviola says. "If we know the virus itself and we know where it came from, we know how to isolate that virus geographically." #

Scientists wear equipment to protect themselves from exposure to bats, as they set up a mist net in front of a building with a bat roost at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños on February 19, 2021. #

Phillip Alviola, a bat ecologist, and Edison Cosico, an administrative aide at the UPLB Museum of Natural History, sit and wait beside a mist net that they set up near a bat roost at Mount Makiling on February 18, 2021. "It's really scary these days," Cosico says. "You never know if the bat is already a carrier," he adds. "What we're after is finding out if there are any more viruses from bats that can be transmitted to humans. We'll never know if the next one is just like COVID." #

Kirk Taray, a bat ecologist, holds on to a bat that was caught in a mist net as Ryan Llamas, a field assistant, holds up a flashlight during field work at Mount Makiling on March 5, 2021. "I am still starting with this career, and I am planning to continue doing this as long as I can. A lot about bats is still unknown to science, and I have many years ahead of me to contribute and shorten that information gap," Taray says. #

Phillip Alviola takes swabs from bats as Kirk Taray notes down information at Mount Makiling on March 5, 2021. "The pandemic has provided a more difficult environment to work with, but that should not stop science from providing answers and addressing more questions. We do not know when this current pandemic will end, and it will only be a matter of time to ask when ... the next outbreak might occur," Taray says. #

Kirk Taray holds a cloth bag containing captured bats as he walks with a team of scientists back to the foot of Mount Makiling in Los Baños, Laguna province, the Philippines, on March 5, 2021. "As we continue to gain close contact with wildlife, we are deliberately exposing ourselves to diseases and danger. If we cannot stop this, we might as well develop measures of control to reduce the impacts of possible future outbreaks, at the very least. That is why this research is important. By having the baseline data on the nature and occurrence of the potentially zoonotic virus in bats, we might somehow predict possible outbreaks and establish suitable, sound, and science-based health protocols," Taray says. #