The following guidance applies to all surveys except for the National Nathusius’ Pipistrelle Project and the Hibernation Survey. These surveys have important additional guidelines around avoiding risks to bats.
The national governments have now lifted COVID-19 restrictions which means National Bat Monitoring Programme surveys can go ahead. Please continue to follow government instructions for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey or Alderney as appropriate, to reduce the risk of catching and spreading COVID-19.
If you have any concerns about the health and safety of yourself or other people, please do not carry out surveys. Please do contact us at nbmp@bats.org.uk with any questions you may have.
Unless you are carrying out counts from your own house (this may be the case for the Sunset Survey and Roost Count) then please ensure you are following government guidance (see links above) and the following additional guidance from BCT:
• Please do not carry out your survey if you or anyone in your household is showing symptoms of COVID-19 or tested positive, or if you think you may have contracted COVID-19 from a recent contact.
• Please refer to the health and safety advice in your survey pack and carry out a risk assessment.
• Where relevant, please liaise with the roost owner or landowner to ask if they have any concerns about you visiting their site this year, and please respect their wishes.
• We recommend that your survey buddy is someone with whom you do not need to maintain social distancing. This is an important Health and Safety requirement. A survey buddy needs to be able to provide immediate assistance in case of an emergency, which may not be possible under social distancing.
• If the above is not possible, please ensure you carry out a risk assessment to assess whether it is safe to go ahead with the survey if your survey buddy is someone with whom you need to maintain social distancing (see the risk assessment template in your survey pack).