Bats require specific welfare management in both zoo exhibits and rehabilitation settings; their nocturnal habits, echolocation, and social species requirements create unique care challenges.
Bat welfare in captive settings requires understanding the species-specific needs of a highly diverse order. Insectivorous bats in rehabilitation require live invertebrate food that stimulates the echolocation-based hunting behaviours essential to welfare and eventual release; static food provision does not meet these needs. Social colony species suffer when isolated; individual housing that is necessary for medical management creates welfare costs that must be weighed against treatment benefits. Zoo fruit bat exhibits that allow the formation of natural roosting colonies and provide flight space appropriate for a volant species achieve considerably better welfare than those that do not.