In March 1986, Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International, resigned from his position as Curator of Mammals at the Milwaukee Public Museum in Wisconsin and relocated his fledgling conservation organization to Austin, which had been making national headline news for its urban bat population. At the time, the Congress Avenue Bridge bats were widely unpopular and the colony was at risk of extermination. Tuttle's public education campaign to save the bats through dispelling myths and misconceptions about their threats to the citizens of Austin was met with widespread skepticism and earned him the 1986 Texas Monthly Bum Steer Award. However, with help from a coalition of leaders in the Austin community, the Public Health Department, and news media, Tuttle's persistent education efforts successfully reversed public opinion about the bats and turned the Congress Avenue Bridge bat colony into the highly-profitable tourist attraction for the city of Austin that it is today.