Vermont’s bats are in trouble and we need your help finding and counting colonies of bats living in buildings.
Monitoring summer bat activity
Female little brown and big brown bats congregate in groups in the spring through summer to give birth and rear their young. Your help monitoring summer bat activity around the state will let us make informed decisions about the welfare and long-term conservation of these important mammals.
How do I get involved?
We make it easy. We supply a detailed instruction sheet and all the necessary forms to fill out. So if you are interested, download the instructions and forms and get ready to start your counts.
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Surveyor Information Data Form - Use this form for registering with the program.
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Summer Maternity Roost Description - Use this form for recording the location and characteristics of the building with the roost.
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Emergence Count Data Form - Use this form for recording the actual bat count.
How will monitoring bat colonies help?
Monitoring summer bat activity will help us gather baseline information on summer bat colonies. It will also let us evaluate the impact of White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) on summer bat colonies by:
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Identifying the location and evaluating the approximate size of bat maternity roosts by counting the number of bats exiting the roost at night (emergence counts).
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Determining where more monitoring is needed by comparing the bat counts before the young bats (pups) can fly (pre-volant counts) and after the pups start flying (post-volant counts).