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SURVEY OF BAT COMMUNITIES IN
THE NEW RIVER GORGE NATIONAL RIVER,
GAULEY RIVER NATIONAL RECREATION AREA,
AND BLUESTONE NATIONAL SCENIC RIVER:
Species Occurence, Relative Abundance,
Distribution, and Habitat Use
Technical Report NPS/NER/NRTR—2007/101
Steven B. Castleberry1, Karl V. Miller1, and W.
Mark Ford2
1Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources
University of Georgia
2USDA Forest Service
Northern Research Station
December 2007
U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Northeast Region
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Executive Summary
Previous studies of bat communities in the New River Gorge National River and Gauley River National Recreation Area primarily consisted of surveys of abandoned mine portals. In addition, Bluestone National Scenic River had never been inventoried for bats. Although mine surveys are an effective way to detect bat species that use mines as day-roost sites or as hibernacula, these efforts provide less information on species that use tree-roosts during all or part of the year. During the summers of 2003 and 2004, we surveyed three National Park Service units (New River Gorge National River [NERI], Gauley River National Recreation Area [GARI], and Bluestone National Scenic River [BLUE]) in south-central West Virginia using a combination of live-capture and acoustic detection techniques. Our objective was to augment previous surveys to provide a more thorough inventory of the bat community and to conduct the first comprehensive inventory of bats at BLUE. Overall, we live-captured 175 bats representing eight species: little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), northern myotis (northern long-eared bat; M. septentrionalis), eastern small-footed myotis (M. leibii), silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans), eastern pipistrelle (Pipistrellus subflavus), big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), red bat (Lasiurus borealis), and hoary bat (L. cinereus). We acoustically sampled 680 unique sites across all park units (453 at NERI, 143 at GARI, and 84 at BLUE), detecting the aforementioned eight species as well as the federally endangered Indiana bat (M. sodalis). Indiana bat echolocation calls were detected at 60 survey sites across all park units, most of which were in closed-canopy riparian areas, supporting results of previous studies documenting habitat use by the species. Indiana bat maternity colonies have not been documented from the park units, but their presence on the units could reasonably be expected based on the relatively large number of echolocation calls recorded and the discovery of maternity roosts in West Virginia to the southwest and the northeast of the park units. The eastern small footed-myotis, a species considered extremely rare and critically imperiled in the state, was captured at NERI (n=3) and was detected acoustically at 57 sites across all parks. Based on our results, the large areas of relatively contiguous mature forest within these parks provide summer foraging habitat for at least nine bat species, two of which are state and federally listed as vulnerable to extinction, highlighting the potential importance of these park units for bat conservation.
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