Bechstein's Bat Project
The Bechstein's bat project is a new National Bat Monitoring Programme (NBMP) project that began in September 2007. Over the next 3.5 years the project aims to survey woodlands in Southern England and South Wales using a new survey technique. The project will involve local bat groups and hope to produce important information about the Bechstein's bat's distribution range and habitat preferences.
The Project
The project will be the first time that this most elusive bat has been the subject of a concerted effort to establish baseline distribution data across the entire species range in England and Wales. The aim of the project is to produce a more accurate distribution map and gather information to inform future conservation policy and woodland management.
The Bechstein's bat is one of the rarest of our mammals and a UK Biodiversity Action Plan priority species. Until now it has been difficult to detect as it rarely leaves the canopy of its favoured broadleaf woodland habitat.
Leading UK bat researchers Frank Greenaway and David Hill have developed and tested a ground-breaking technique to relay ultrasonic social calls to locate these very secretive bats. Their survey techniques will be adopted as the basis for the National Bechstein's Bat Survey across southern England and Wales. The project will rely on the involvement of experienced, specially trained volunteers recruited through the local bat group network and the support of landowners and woodland managers.
It is hoped that 4-5 counties/areas will be surveyed during each year of the project with volunteers from bat groups in these areas being trained in the technique to be used. In the first year of the project volunteers from Carmarthenshire, Cornwall, Dyfed, Oxfordshire and Surrey bat groups have agreed to take part.
Contact
Please contact BCT's Bechstein's Bat Project Officer, if you would like any more information about the project, or are part of a bat group who may be interested in taking part.
