Bats face multiple threats in urban environments despite their crucial role in insect control and ecosystem services, with individual welfare impacts from human encounters often severe.
Individual bat welfare is compromised by multiple urban factors: building exclusions that trap bats inside, pesticides that eliminate insect prey, artificial lighting that delays emergence and disrupts foraging, and white-nose syndrome (a fungal disease) that causes fatal hibernation disruption. Bats that come into human contact are often killed from fear rather than disease concern. Public education is critical — healthy bats rarely carry rabies, do not seek human contact, and provide enormous ecosystem services. Exclusion procedures during spring/summer maternity season trap and kill pups.