Home Our Work Research and Scalable Solutions North American Bat Monitoring Program
 
A portrait of a male hoary bat
Michael Durham/Minden Pictures

Collaborative science-based conservation

Collaboration among diverse constituents and beyond country boundaries provides the basis for shared data collection and shared initiatives needed to guide decision-making to protect and manage the world’s bat populations. The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) unites government agencies, researchers, and NGOs to improve the state of conservation science for bats in North America, serving as a powerful role model for collaborative and science-based bat conservation.

Objectives

INCREASE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF DATA CONTRIBUTED TO INFORM POPULATION STATUS AND TRENDS OF NORTH AMERICAN BAT SPECIES
CONTRIBUTE TO REPORTS OF STATUS AND TRENDS OF NORTH AMERICAN BAT SPECIES MADE AVAILABLE TO DECISION MAKERS
DETERMINE REGULATORY STATUS OF BAT SPECIES BASED ON POPULATION STATUS AND TRENDS

Program Details

Bats in North America face three major threats: white-nose syndrome (WNS), mortality from wind energy facilities, and habitat loss and degradation. Lack of information on population status and trends impedes regulatory protection and hinders targeting conservation actions for species and populations that need it most. Committing to long-term monitoring that provides accurate population status and trends is the first step in taking conservation action.

BCI serves as a key partner and leading contributor to the North American Bat Monitoring Program. Our team provides leadership and collaborates on research involving data collection, data processing, and analytic tools to provide robust data inputs and analytic outputs to inform the status and trends of bat populations in North America.  We work specifically on improving methods of reproducibility and scalability of monitoring data to support bat conservation efforts in North America and globally.

 
A little brown myotis is in flight over lupine stream side in Lakeview County, Oregon
Michael Durham/Minden Pictures

We’re dedicated to working with partners. Our efforts include:

  • Collaborate and improve methods for standardized data collection and dissemination to assess the status and trends of bat populations in North America
  • Conduct robust analyses and build tools that enable decision-makers to identify and achieve conservation outcomes
  • Provide leadership to unite stakeholders to collaborate as vital partners in an effort to address significant threats to North American bats – including White-nose Syndrome, wind energy development, and habitat loss

We share and leverage data to improve bat conservation across North America

 
BCI Staff Dr. Amanda Adams analyzing bat acoustic data
Kendra B. Lewellyn

National Data Processing Lab (NDPL)

The National Data Processing Lab (NDPL) is a fully integrated data processing center that handles all aspects of bat acoustic data processing for acoustic surveys. We aim to increase the efficiency, quality, and speed of data contributions to the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) with standardized, repeatable, and transparent methods. The NDPL collaborates with a wide range of public and private partners and large amounts of acoustic data to support data-driven bat conservation management.

LEARN MORE

Download the NDPL information flyer HERE.

Interested in collaborating? Email [email protected]. 

Key Collaborators

 
Bat Detector
Photo by Christy Walker

Southwest & PacWest Regional Hubs

The Southwest (Arizona & New Mexico) and PacWest (California & Nevada) Bat Hubs were created by BCI, in partnership with the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) and US Fish and Wildlife Service, to coordinate and grow bat monitoring activities in their respective regions. The Hubs develop and maintain a community of partners who work together to monitor bats by contributing to NABat. The Hubs support their partners by coordinating survey efforts, facilitating the sharing of knowledge and equipment, interfacing with the NABat Coordinating Office to improve the platform, and ensuring that quality data are supplied to NABat in a timely manner. As the Hubs work with their partners to grow contributions to NABat, thereby improving the quality and quantity of available data on bat populations, NABat allows for increasingly powerful insight into the status and trends of bat populations to inform the best conservation science of bats possible.

Learn more about bat survey techniques and acoustic monitoring.

Interested in getting involved? Contact:

Collaboration is essential for effective conservation. We work side-by-side with partners worldwide to secure lasting global conservation success.

Dr. Winifred Frick Chief Scientist
A Mexican free-tailed bat in flight
J. Scott Altenbach