Licensing
Some bat work can be carried out without holding a licence of any kind. Both volunteers and professionals can carry out the planning stages of a survey and do bat detector activity surveys without requiring a licence. A licence is only needed once it has been established that bats are present.
In England there are three types of licence (described below). In Scotland and Wales, some, or all, of these categories have been amalgamated. Below are some guidelines about licensing, but if in doubt about what kind of licence you need, you should contact the appropriate SNCO.
Roost Visitor (Conservation) licence
Volunteers wishing to act as volunteer Roost Visitors for their SNCO require this licence. These volunteers visit householders who have bat roosts and who are either planning some work that may disturb the bats, are unhappy with their bats and may need some reassurance, or those who are interested to know more about their bats.
The training scheme for this licence is entirely voluntary. Most bat groups have one or more voluntary trainers, who take on a certain number of trainees each year. The trainees cover all of the relevant theory relating to bat work, and then do a number of accompanied roost visits to gain practical experience. Once the trainer considers that a trainee is competent (in the theory and practice of bat work and the ability to talk to householders), they will sign them off for their licence.
If you are planning to work as a consultant, this licence is not really suitable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, you may not be able to find a trainer willing to train you – some bat groups won’t train consultants. Secondly, not all trainers are willing to train people in surveying skills for structures other than dwelling houses, and as a consultant you would need to be able to survey all kinds of structures and landscapes.
Survey licence
The licence that would be most appropriate for professional consultancy would be the survey licence. This licence does not have a specific training scheme relating to it at the moment, as the rise of professional bat work is relatively recent.
BCT offers a number of training courses that we consider to be a good starting point in becoming a competent consultant (details available on the website or we can send you a printed brochure). However, following on from these courses, you would still need to get a substantial amount of experience in the field before being competent to undertake bat surveys on your own.
Unfortunately, at the moment, it can be quite hard to find someone to take you out to gain this experience. Some bat groups may have projects that you can help with. If you are currently working with a sub-contractor, they may be willing to take you out with them.
BCT is currently working on a professional licensing scheme to try to fill the gap in the system, which we hope will be up and running towards the end of 2010.
Scientific licences
Those needing to disturb, take or possess bats for either scientific purposes require this licence. It is generally used by those undertaking scientific research or project work. There is not a specific training scheme associated with this licence.
Other licences cover areas of bat work such as ringing, tagging and marking bats for specific research projects.