Bats are the subject of many myths and legends, usually portrayed in a negative light. And that’s a problem. The services they perform for their ecosystems and humans are often overlooked, as are the challenges they face from climate change and invasive disease.

To learn more about bat populations, researchers must first find their caves. Even when they live within earshot of a paved road, getting to their front porch takes some work.

Alex Silvis, the endangered species coordinator for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, described a location just outside Franklin, West Virginia, as the “easiest” location for a spring bat count.

Easiest is relative, of course, as getting to the cave involved a short hike to the bottom of the mountain, then another roughly 75 yards up an almost vertical hillside.

“Over the span of about an hour and a half, we’re expecting to see around 1,200 bats come out of this cave,” Silvis said.

The cave entrance is relatively small, no more than about 7 feet across and 2 feet high. But it hides a space that opens up considerably.

“There is a room in this cave that’s about 800 feet long,” Silvis said. “You wouldn’t know it by the size of this particular entrance, but essentially the whole of the side of this mountain is basically underlain by cave passage.”

The Risks to Bats Posed by Disease and Climate Change

Those dark caverns are home to the Virginia big-eared bat. More than half of this species lives in West Virginia, but there are small populations throughout the region. They’ve been listed as endangered since 1979 — one of four bat species in the state with that designation.

In North America, more than 50% of all bat species have a “moderate to very high risk of extinction” in the next 15 years.

“One of the big problems facing bats is white-nose syndrome, and that’s now a national and international issue,” Silvis said.

Read the full article about bat endangerment by Eric Douglas at WV Public Broadcasting.