Wisconsin Bat Conservation & Management Plan

1. Wisconsin Bat Conservation & Management Plan Citizen-based Monitoring David Redell Bat Ecologist Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Endangered Resources Ecological Inventory & Monitoring Section

2. Outline • Bats Introduction • UK National Bat Monitoring Program • Wisconsin Bat Plan • Incorporating Citizen-based Monitoring • Ultrasound detection surveys • Hibernacula monitoring

3. ~1000 known bats - about 1/4 of all mammals. Among mammalian orders, bats are probably unsurpassed in terms of ecological and morphological diversity. Bats are an important natural predator of night-flying insects in WI Introducing - Bats Class-Mammalia. Order-Chiroptera

4. Bats are vulnerable to extinction • slowest reproducing mammals for their size • most producing only one young annually. • More than 50% of American bat species are in decline or already listed as endangered • Loss of bats • increases demand for chemical pesticides • can jeopardize whole ecosystems of other plant and animal spp • can harm human economies

5. The little brown bat • world's longest lived mammal for its size, • life-spans sometimes exceeding 32 years. • All mammals can contract rabies; however • < 0.5% of bats get rabies • normally bite in self-defense • pose little threat to people • A colony of 150 big brown bats can protect local farmers from up to 33 million or more rootworms each summer.

6. 7, 8, or 9 WI BAT Species Family: Vespertilionidae Myotis lucifugus Little brown bat Myotis septentrionalis Northern long-eared Pipistrellus subflavus Eastern pipistrelle Eptesicus fuscus Big brown bat Lasiurus borealis Red bat Lasiurus cinereus Hoary bat Lasionycteris noctivagans Silver-haired bat ??? Myotis sodalis Indiana bat ??? Nycticeius humeralis??? Evening bat

8. UK “Despite the best efforts of many committed naturalists and biologists providing data on localised populations of bats, there has been no structured framework for monitoring bat populations at a national level. The National Bat Monitoring Programme was intended to fill this gap and provide the information on population so urgently needed for conservation and management.”

9. Workshop & VolunteerDistributions

10. Volunteer Recruitment Methods • Talks • Workshops • Word of Mouth • Roost owner leaflets • Bat detector leaflets • Internet • Magazine Articles

14. Volunteer Options Depending on a volunteer’s location, training, experience and time availability • Transect surveys • Hibernacula surveys • Waterway routes • Summer roost site monitoring • Etc.

15. Transect route example

16. Bat detector surveys Roost site surveys Pipistrelle roosts / occasional records Serotines present absent

17. Winter & Summer Roost distribution of the Natterer’s bat

18. Winter & Summer Roost distribution of the Serotine bat

19. Winter & Summer Roost distribution of the Pipistrelle bat

21. Wisconsin Bat Conservation & Management Plan (WBCMP)

22. WBCMP 2005 • The Goals of the WI Bat Conservation & Management Plan • A functional plan that sets future directions and adapts to new information. • Identify where on the landscape Wisconsin’s eight known species of bats exist throughout their entire natural history cycle, including habitat relationships. • Identify the geography, behavior and variability associated with their nightly and seasonal movements. • Locate areas in Wisconsin having high and low relative abundance of each bat species. • Monitor and identify statewide population trends. • Outline conservation needs, priority management actions, and ways to measure plan effectiveness. • Utilize the information gathered in a management of natural resources context—specifically, having the best available information, collected, analyzed, interpreted and readily accessible to all appropriate decision makers.

23. WBCMP Phase I • Plan, Infrastructure design, and Methods development • Develop Wisconsin Bat Conservation & Management Plan • Utilize a statewide GIS-based data mapping system.... • Identify issues related to bat impacts... • Develop a P.I.T. tag detection & monitoring system. • Identify & survey known and possible bat hibernacula. • Develop reference library of bat echolocation calls for species ID model. • Develop system for monitoring major hibernacula. • Develop statewide citizen-based monitoring network for monitoring bat activity on the landscape.

24. Using meaningful classifications for analyses

25. Land cover Ownership Western Coulee & Ridges Ecological Landscape

26. Land cover Ownership North Central Forest Ecological Landscape

27. Detecting, Recording, and Analyzing Bat Vocalizations

28. Capture MethodsHarp Traps

29. Reference Call LibraryChemoluminescent tags on released bats

30. - Species Reference - Ultrasound detector recordings Big brown bat Little brown bat

31. - Species Reference - Ultrasound detector recordings Eastern Red bat Hoary bat

32. Reference Ultrasound detector recordings Eastern Pipistrelle Silver-haired bat

33. Example of variation in a single pass of one species

34. Long-term monitoring stationbat detector & weather data

35. Hibernacula Monitoring Monitor changes in populations Identify natural population dynamics Identify significant trends Outline conservation actions

37. Infrared beam-break counters

39. Infrared photo-beam calibration IN counts OUT counts IN – OUT = Net movement (Census)

40. Comparing counts for 2 years

41. Thus, an estimate for the over-wintering bat population at the Neda Mine is between 140,223 and 146,083 bats How many bats at other WI hibernacula ? Summer roosts ??

42. Acknowledgements WI DNR Ecological Inventory & Monitoring Section UW Madison Dept of Wildlife Ecology, Bat Conservation International, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Milwaukee County Zoological Society Scott Craven, Stan Gehrt, Gerald Bartelt, Maureen Rowe, Dan Shurilla, Herb Guenther, Matt Conger, Travis Holte Wisconsin Bat Crew: Angela ‘by night’ Engelman, Annemarie Kalson, & Michael Watt