Bat Populations in Norfolk - is a European trend true here?

I was recently interviewed by the Eastern Daily Press and the Yarmouth Advertiser and asked to comment on the European Environment Agency research which claims that the total number of bats has increased by 43% from 1993 to 2011.

In the study the team counted bats at 6,000 sites in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and the UK.

This was reported in many newspapers including:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/30/european-bat-population-rises

If this is really factual, it masks the continuing drop in bat populations across East Anglia which should be of concern to bat conservationists.

Of course it may have been issued to try to justify the time and money spent by various organisations now involved with bats.

The article is shown below:



Deceased Record

It is always sad to see a large animal or any bird killed on our Norfolk and Suffolk roads, although this is a less common occurrence than 20 or 30 years ago, as our East Anglian wildlife has generally diminished in terms of biomass.

However, something can be salvaged from such a sad occurrence if the deceased animal expands our knowledge of animals in that area, and the find is properly recorded.

Such an occurrence happened this week when a Chinese Water Deer was found dead beside a country lane in the parish of Hempnall in South Norfolk.

The record has been sent to the Norfolk Biodiversity  Information Service for adding the wildlife database that they maintain.

Although this species is now widespread and frequent in the Norfolk broads and along many of our river valleys, it has been spreading out into farmland too, into areas where Muntjac Deer might be expected instead (or now, as well as).

The body of evidence is shown below - a young female.



BAT HIBERNATION

BAT HIBERNATION

It has been said that there may be a reluctance at times to make successful bat mitigation schemes generally available that give guidance to others. This is understandable where large amounts of expertise, time and money have been expended over many years.

 The BCT “roost” web site is a potentially useful resource, but after five attempts to upload the details of a successful hibernation, the software has rejected me each time! Perhaps that is why few new submissions have taken place, and the “roost award” offered by BCT, as of March each year is an elusive one! See http://roost.bats.org.uk

 A small group of us in East Anglia have something of a reputation for being in the forefront of protecting and enhancing UK Myotis hibernation sites over many years, with my first bat grille on a chalk cave site constructed back in 1968. This length of experience has yielded some very worthwhile bat conservation rewards - even if no BCT awards!

 It is, however, rare to get the opportunity to construct a worthwhile new, large bat site from scratch without being development driven and, we suspect, even rarer to get great results!

 Just such an opportunity arose ten years ago on the Norfolk/Suffolk border on Forestry Commission land where a measure of mitigation was felt to be necessary to offset potential impacts on a small bat hibernation site adjacent to the High Lodge Visitor Centre.

 

The left view shows the foundations in place and the right picture is of the walls up to roof height

 

  

A team inspection on progress 2004



 

Checking the tunnel and a Natterer’s in a bat brick

 

A paper in the Transactions of the Suffolk Naturalists’ Society, Volume 49 pages 1-9, was published today which reveals some, but not all, the secrets of producing a successful bat hibernation site, and includes the monitoring results for the first ten years.

Below is the interpretation board

 

 

Copies of the transactions are available via the Suffolk Biological Records Centre in Ipswich, http://www.suffolkbrc.org.uk and a preview is provided for a few days at:

 

http://tinyurl.com/mx2uj9q

 

John Goldsmith

Protect and Survive

Being especially interested in East Anglian bat conservation, I confess it has taken over a large part of my 50 active years of living with wildlife!

Here I refer to what I term proper “bat conservation” – not the “pretend conservation” stuff that goes on in the form of repeated and incorrect statements (argumentum ad nausea) that claim, for instance, that caring for an individual injured bat is contributing to bat conservation. It rarely is, it is just a welfare consideration for an individual, and does not aid the overall wild population. Similarly, the large-scale exercises of electronically recording bats on expensive gadgets and plotting maps is claimed somehow contribute to bat conservation! A brief close examination shows that it certainly does not!

 It may pump-up the personal profile of a few people in various academic, or quasi-academic worlds, but the fact that any bat has been located at a specific eight figure grid reference for a fraction of a second one evening means little as, if it were a Noctule Bat, it could be roosting in a tree 25 kilometres away within an hour or so. How does this equate to any meaningful “conservation” contribution? In truth not one iota!

 Let us not forget that these electronic devices which claim to identify “to species” can be 60% incorrect (less certain than a toss of a coin). A further layer of rich farce is added to the existing waste of time and money by “processing” these sounds on a computer, making as many as a further 95% WRONGLY allocated to so-called species. “Science”? – I think not, simply spoof implied proof only by repeated assertion!

Fortunately there is still a spread of individuals and organisations in the UK that recognise these popular failings and misconceptions and still undertake REAL bat conservation. One of these is the Norfolk Bat Group, established in 1961 as the first county bat group in the UK, even if it is now reduced to just a handful of committed active people.

 One of the many positive undertakings by the group was establishing a network of protected underground hibernating sites in Norfolk. One example is shown below.

This scheme was tackled as a millennium project, started in 1996, which aimed to protect 25% of the known bat hibernation sites in the county. By 2000 only 23 sites were secured, slightly less than 25%, as available funding was failing. Others have been tackled subsequently, although some of these have subsequently been damaged, or reduced in usefulness, but overall there has been a very high level of success.

On the down side, a few sites have been broken into. Not by hooligans (although this term may be considered by some as entirely appropriate) but by those with an existing Natural England bat licence who wanted to be able to “monitor” a hibernation site, but were too idle to find or enhance their own, and too ignorant and offensive to liaise and cooperate with those who originally built or repaired the structure. Breaking off the original locks and substituting their own, as has happened in Norfolk, ought to carry an instant bat licence disqualification in my view. Bear in mind that “NBG” and other contact details are always left discreetly at such sites, and landowner permission fully established, so there are no acceptably valid excuses!

Protection site success? In brief, yes. There are between 2 and 150 bats of six species using most of the sites protected. With 100 known sites and an approximate bat ‘show-rate’ of perhaps ten percent per annum, plus some monitoring over 35 years suggests around 8,000 bats have been given some measure of hibernation protection annually in the county.

One bat hibernation aid that was developed by the group in parallel with the underground site protection was the “Norfolk Bat Brick”. Information at: http://tinyurl.com/pwsckwv

The first prototype brick was made and installed in a Norfolk lime kiln in October 1983. A Daubenton Bat was in it for the 1st observed time at the end of 2013 – 30 years on! See below.

 

The design and materials have been subject to continuous improvements over the 30 years, with over 7,000 having now been made and installed. At some sites during the winter over 100 bats are using the bat bricks. As is customary with anything that seems to work well, there have been some imitations, although there is a design copyright on the product. I will be reviewing, and commenting on these in a future blog.



JGG 12-01-2014

A New Year - pushing boundaries and possibilities

I have long contemplated producing an occasional wildlife orientated blog. Indeed have attempted a couple, but never kept them up!

This one may be different...

I shall seek to comment on wildlife issues, mainly in my home counties, but probably some from around the world, based on my 40+ years of experience in the wildlife field - in the broadest context - and commenting, either adversely, or in a complementary way, according to subject and personal mood at the time.

These will be primarily personal views, though some will undoubtedly be impressions gained within my professional field - i.e. that of being an East Anglian consultant wildlife ecologist.

These blog notes will seek to edify, educate, elucidate or correct incorrect impressions in the wonderful world of wildlife. Some will be benign, some controversial - others may challenge bodies or individuals in a general or even a personal way if the circumstances indicate the necessity in the name of wildlife and species conservation!

Why the Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) photo you ask? I have had the great fortune to see this species close-up in captivity, and on Madagascar. It embodies the spirit of what I feel...

Reclusive and rarely seen in public, mainly nocturnal, big appealing eyes and a good sense of smell and hearing, sparsely hirsute, and a long digit for poking into rotten bits of wood to explore and extract grubs/maggots - and eating them up...

Nuff said?


John Goldsmith
04/01/2014