White-nose syndrome has taken a toll on the bat population, but preliminary research data shows more bats than expected along the Atlantic Coast from Long Island to Cape Cod.
“So what we’re interested in doing is investigating where these bats go during the fall and wintertime and if there’s a reason they’re more abundant in these coastal regions despite the disease impacts occurring elsewhere,” said Dr. Shannon Farrell, of SUNY-ESF.
It is a five-year study sponsored by the National Park Service.
“We’ve spent about two years obtaining basic information on what bats are around in the area during the summertime,” said Farrell. “That’s where they’re foraging and roosting and having their pups.”
Because bats are difficult to see at night and their calls are mostly outside the range of human hearing acoustic detectors are used to produce sonograms that are used to identify the bats in that area.
The next phase is tracking their movements in the fall and winter.
“We have to be very tactical about capturing the right bats at the right time, getting those transmitters on them that are lightweight enough so they don’t impede the bat or harm them in any way and then capture that data in the short window that we have,” said Farrell. “It’s important because a thriving bat population is important.
“If they were removed from the ecosystem entirely, one or more bat species, we could expect to see significant changes that could have an impact on our wellbeing as well as other wildlife.”