Wind farms are being built all over Europe to provide us with energy in the future when fossil fuels run out. However, those wind farms can cause collisions among bats, both among local and migratory animals. To take the presence of bats into account when looking for locations for wind farms, it is necessary to know where these animals occur or migrate in large numbers (see also A new EU Biodiversity Strategy). The French Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with the Bats Agreement, has launched a study to map these areas in Europe based on existing sound recordings.
The aim is not to make new sound recordings but to bring together the recordings that already exist. Much has already been collected for Western Europe, but information about the occurrence and migration of bats from Central and Eastern Europe is still lacking. Do you have sound observations of bats in your country, and would you like to share them for this research? If so, please register via the website https://bat-migration-europe.netlify.app/project/get-involved/. If you don’t have any data yourself but know people who collect sound observations from bats, please inform them about this research.
For more information about this research watch the video below, download the PDF file Bat migration routes in Europe or visit the website https://bat-migration-europe.netlify.app.
For more information, you can also contact Charlotte Roemer of the French Museum of Natural History: charlotte.roemer1@mnhn.fr.
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