Spring 2004

Table of Contents

Remember your bats

Bats may be one of your most common backyard mammals and one of your most beneficial neighbors. But they tend to be forgotten, perhaps because they’re active at night, more likely because of centuries old myths.

WDFW biologists Michelle Tirhi and Gerald Hayes are among others trying to change that with development of a Washington Bat Conservation Plan that outlines bat ecology, habitat needs, and conservation goals. Plan development is with Bats Northwest, a non-profit organization for bat conservation and research, and the Washington Bat Working Group of bat experts from federal and state agencies, private timber companies and Bats Northwest members. The state plan is directly connected to the North American Bat Conservation Partnership (NABCP) Strategic Plan.

North America is home to 148 of the world’s nearly 1,000 species of bats. Of these, 45 species live in the U.S. and 15 are found in Washington.

In 1971, the American Association for the Advancement of Science concluded that bats were ecologically essential and some species were rapidly declining and in need of help. In response to anti-bat campaigns in the late 1970’s, Bat Conservation International (BCI) was founded to correct misperceptions about bats through education, research, and communication. NABCP was formed in 1999 as an international alliance of agencies and organizations committed to funding bat research and identifying continent-wide priorities for bat conservation in their strategic plan. WDFW is part of NABCP’s Western Working Group for developing conservation strategies for western bat species. Another regional collaboration is the Northwest Bat Cooperative, an alliance interested in cooperatively funding research in the Pacific Northwest, most recently bat selection of roosts in forested habitats.

You can do your part by learning more about how to live with the abundant bat species in your own backyard, like the Little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), or ways you can help declining species, like the Keen’s Myotis’(Myotis keenii) at www.batsnorthwest.org.