Traveling the Northwest Corner in the Real Batmobile

"The baby bat screamed out in fright, 'Turn on the DARK I'm afraid of the Light" -Shel Silverstein

There are more than 50 species of bats in the United States. The majority of bat species found within the United States are found in the warmer areas of the country. In Connecticut, nine species of bats have historically be found in the state.

Here is the current conservation status for the 9 species of bats historically found in Connecticut:

• Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus)-Not Listed in CT

• Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis)-(SC) - Species of Special Concern in CT

• Eastern Small-Footed Bat (Myotis leibii)-(E) - Endangered Species in CT

• Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus)-(SC) - Species of Special Concern in CT

• Indiana Bat (Myotis sodalis)-(ES&F) - Endangered Species in CT and at the Federal Level 

• Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus)-(E) - Endangered Species in CT

• Northern Long-Eared Bat (Myotis septentrionalis)-(ES&F) - Endangered Species in CT and at the Federal Level  

• Tricolored Bat (Pipistrellus subflavus)-(E) - Endangered Species in CT

• Silver-Haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans)-(SC) - Species of Special Concern in CT  

The Big Brown Bat is the most common species in the state.

Within the past fifteen years, bat populations have been in serious decline. These are the six factors which jeopardize bat populations: 

• Disease
• Habitat Issues
• Wind Technology
• Changing Climate Patterns
• Reproductive Issues 
• Fear & Misinformation

Overall, in the New England region, bats help create healthier ecosystems by providing valuable ecosystem services. The term ecosystem services means all the good things humans get from nature or the environment, either directly or indirectly. In our region, bats provide valuable ecosystem services to the agricultural industry and human health.

​Bats help farmers in their fight to suppress and control the population of insects​ (e.g. June beetles, click beetles, leaf hoppers, stink bugs & gypsy moths). Bats also will eat some invasive species of insects (e.g. Asian Longhorn Beetle).

Bats eat insects which carry viruses which can cause human disease. The main source of food for many bat species in New England is mosquitoes. Around the world, mosquitoes carry a lot of viruses that can be transmitted to humans, In New England mosquitoes are vectors for these two diseases which can harm to humans:

• West Nile Virus
• Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE)

Our Bat mobile was outfitted with the following equipment

• Binary Acoustics AR 125 Bat Detector in PVC Housing Supplied by the Connecticut DEEP
• External GPS Unit 
• Computer (supplied by DEEP)

Our results showed that the Big Brown bat was the most common in our area. We found many of the endangered species in our area as well.

We also compared our 2 transects and found similar results.

We went into this project with little to no data or knowledge about bats. We accomplished our objectives and learned a lot about bats and how bats are studied accoustically. We found out that most areas in our town have not been surveyed for bats and there was little data for our area in public state records or maps. We also learned that what data existed, had not being used or contributed to public map or programs like The North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat). This is an international collaborative to monitor bat distributions and abundances on public and private lands, and provide trend data at the different state, regional and national levels. Our data documented many species of bats, most of which are threatened or endangered. We will work toward contributing this data to (NABAT). Numerous bat species were also discovered utilizing habitat in or near Kent Land Trust properties. This may be due to the variety of habitats (inland wetlands. riparian corridor, early successional, and thousands of acres of protected forests) which help migrating and tree roosting bats. More land trust properties could be surveyed to get baseline data about bats utilizing these areas. This would best be done with passive acoustic recorders left in the field for several days or weeks. Bats are very important to our ecosystem and we hope our data and educational story map, and community programming will spark more surveys, contributions of data and actions towards saving these creatures.