Townsend’s Big-Eared Bat Research

This article was originally published in The Midden – Great Basin National Park: Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2018.

Studying a Townsend’s big-eared bat. Over 200 were captured during the 2018 season.

By Kelsey Eckholm, Biological Science Technician

Over the course of this summer, the Great Basin bat crew has been working in collaboration with Christopher Newport University (CNU) researchers and the Nevada Department of Wildlife to collect data on Townsend’s big-eared bats (Corynorhinus townsendii) in the area.

Trapping primarily occurred at known big-eared bat roosts in and around the park and at other opportunistic locations such as foraging areas. A new cave and big-eared bat roost was discovered in Spring Valley through CNU’s radio-telemetry project earlier this summer, so we were able to include this new roost in our trapping effort as well.

After each Townsend’s big-eared bat was studied, it was released. Some were tracked to find where they went, and as a result a new cave and roost were found.

In 20 nights of trapping, 204 Townsend’s big-eared bats were captured for the study. Of these, 21 were recaptures from previous trapping efforts in the park over the years. A total of 138 individuals received passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags to track movements within and around the park. with the help of PIT tag readers deployed at several caves and mines.

The CNU researchers were collecting data for both masters and PhD projects, including wing punch samples for DNA and hair samples for stable isotope research. From the group’s effort, 185 wing punches and 180 hair samples were collected for analysis.

Data from these collaborations will help build an understanding of bat ecology at multiple scales and help develop management plans for mitigating threats to bats, such as White Nose Syndrome.