Defenders' Experts
Bats: Background and Recovery
Nine bat species found in America are listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. These flying mammals are threatened by habitat loss and damaging development, human persecution, disease and other threats.
Bats play a vital role in the environment and serve as natural insecticides. Seventy percent of bats are insect eaters and they eat large numbers of insects, including pest species like mosquitoes and crop-eating insects, thereby significantly reducing damage to crops. Losing insect-eating bats could trigger massive insect explosions that could have a major impact on agriculture and human health.
Wind Power and Bats
Some studies show disturbingly high bat fatalities around wind turbines along bat migratory routes. However, proper planning and siting of wind facilities, as well as certain operational changes, can help to reduce bat deaths associated with wind power.
Learn more about our recommendations for wind power.
Human Persecution of Bats
The greatest threat to bats is people. Habitat destruction and fear are a lethal combination for bats. In some areas, people have even been known to set fires in caves, killing thousands of roosting bats.
In recent years, conservation groups have taken steps to preserve bat habitat, placing gates on abandoned mines that can serve as bat habitat and constructing bridges in such a way as to provide additional habitat for these historically misunderstood and ecologically important animals.
Learn more about our bat habitat conservation work.
Diseases Affecting bats
North American bats are facing a crisis of tremendous proportions.
An emerging disease called white-nose syndrome is killing hibernating bats in large numbers and has
spread through a number of eastern states in the past two years. To
date, this disease has killed an estimated one million bats.
First discovered in cave system near Albany, New York in 2006, the disease has spread rapidly to cave systems in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, West Virginia and Virginia.
Researchers believe the disease is a Geomyces fungus that gets into bats’ skin and creates a white fuzzy growth around their muzzles and wings. How the fungus spreads and how to prevent bats from contracting it are still a mystery.
To date, this disease has predominantly affected the 6 species of hibernating bats, which includes the federally-protected Indiana bat. However, the disease is spreading both geographically and in the number of species it impacts. Researchers are seeing significant declines in many species that can be attributed to white-nose syndrome.
Video courtesy of Ravenswood Media, Inc.
Learn more about the policies and management we support to help protect bats.
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