Wildlife Fact:

Indiana bats give birth to only one young in mid-summer. The young bats are capable of flight in a month.

Bat Project

Read about our work to help protect New Jersey's bat population.

Image of Big brown bats in an attic space.

Zoom+ Big brown bats in an attic space. © Phil Wooldridge

Benefits of Bats

Bats have a reputation as being spooky or even dangerous, but they are actually some of the most beneficial animals to people.

All of New Jersey's bats are insectivores. They feed on night-flying insects, including the pesty mosquitoes. A single little brown bat can eat 3,000 mosquito-sized insects a night, and a colony of 150 big brown bats can eat enough cucumber beetles to save farmers almost a billion dollars annually in crop damages and pesticide costs. Without bats, we would be more dependent on toxic chemicals to control unwanted insects. Some garden pests even detect the sounds that bats make while feeding and will avoid areas where bats are present. In turn, guano (bat droppings) makes for a terrific garden fertilizer!

In other areas of the world, bats play a major role in pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds for plants such as bananas, avocados, cashews, and mangoes. By dispersing a wide variety of plant seeds over open areas, bats also help to restore the tropical rainforests following logging, fire, and other disturbances.

Many scientific advancements are owed to bats as well: navigational aids for the blind, blood-clot medication, artificial insemination techniques, low-temperature surgery on people, and military sonar have all been inspired by our night-flying friends.

Threats to Bats

Bats have been in decline for many years for many reasons. Some of the biggest threats include loss of their forest habitats and roost trees, disturbance of winter dens, and outright persecution by man.

In 2006, a new threat appeared which dwarfs all others: White-nose Syndrome (WNS). The Syndrome is named for the white fungus observed first around the noses of affected bats. The fungus attacks during winter hibernation, when the bats' immune response is low, and prevents them from conserving enough stored energy to survive until spring. Nearly entire hibernating colonies of bats have died in affected caves and mines.

White-nose Syndrome was first discovered in a cave near Albany, NY, and has since spread to 12 U.S. states and into Ontario, Canada (winter 2009-2010). The Syndrome was confirmed in New Jersey in January 2009 and has seriously impacted the state's three most important hibernacula. Tens of thousands of NJ bats have died.

Much is still unknown about WNS and its cause, much less its consequences. The federal government, states, several universities, and private organizations are allocating significant resources to track and understand WNS. There is no evidence to suggest that WNS has any affect on humans.

Our Projects

Image of A bat emerges from its summer roost site.

Zoom+ A bat emerges from its summer roost site. © MacKenzie Hall

The Summer Bat Count was created by the Conserve Wildlife Foundation and the state's Endangered and Nongame Species Program (ENSP) to gain a better understanding of how NJ's bats are distributed across the state, what conditions they select for roosting, and how populations may be changing over time. Now that White-nose Syndrome has hit NJ, Summer Bat Count information is even more critical, helping biologists to measure the impact of this devastating ailment.

In response to White-nose Syndrome, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and many states have stepped-up efforts to study summering bat colonies. The goals are to assess bats for signs of WNS exposure (like wing scarring, holes, or tears), to record weight, sex, reproductive status, and age information, and to affix ID bands for future observation. In NJ, ENSP's Mick Valent leads the roost monitoring effort, and CWF lends a hand by coordinating study sites and assisting with the capture and assessment of bats.

The Conserve Wildlife Foundation has also launched an Indiana Bats Forestry Project. We're working with willing landowners and land managers to enhance bat habitat. Projects involve forestry practices to create more roosting opportunities for the endangered Indiana bat as well as more common tree-roosting species. Funding for this project is provided by the NJ Landowner Incentive Program (LIP).

This season, we're excited to start working with AnaBat acoustic detectors. Acoustic detectors are able to “hear” and record the the echolocation calls that bats give off as they travel and hunt for insects. Different bat species produce unique call patterns at varying frequencies of sound that can often be used to tell them apart. Acoustic technology thus allows you to document the diversity and abundance of bats in an area of interest.

The detectors can be used while walking or driving, or they can be set up outside and left to record data for several days, weeks, or even months. We’ll be doing all of these things, some of them as part of regional/national studies.