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Bat Projects

The San Diego Natural History Museum is one of the few institutions in the region with the expertise and permits to identify, monitor, and handle bats.  Check out some of the recent projects we have conducted.

Bats surveys in Sunshine Peak training area at Marine Corps Air Ground Tactical Center, Twentynine Palms, California

The goal of this project was twofold: to determine if bats are roosting in abandoned mines that had bat-friendly gates, and to determine the current bat species community and population status while providing comparisons to the community and populations found prior to installation of the bat-friendly gates. Project partners included Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest, United States Marine Corps, CGS, Inc., and Vernadero, Inc.

MCB Camp Pendleton and Naval Weapon Station Seal Beach Detachment Fallbrook Bat Inventory

This project sought to determine the bat species community, assess bat use of habitats including man-made structures, and investigate seasonal activity patterns of bats on the two installations. Project partners included Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest, United States Marine Corps, and United States Navy.

Tijuana River Valley Permanent Bat Monitoring Station

This ongoing project seeks to establish baseline information about the bat species community in the Tijuana River Valley prior to and/or during significant ecological changes such as restoration, flooding, wildfire, and the arrival of infectious diseases such as White Nose Syndrome. There are three program goals:

  1. Contribute to baseline bat species composition, activity, and movement data via multi-year cross-season acoustic data collection.
  2. Partner with state-wide and international (U.S.-Canada) bat detector networks to share data collected in this study.
  3. Evaluate bat activity levels and species composition in Coastal Program restoration sites.

Project partners included the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Forest Service, San Diego State University, and the University of California Reserve Network.