Bats provide vital ecosystem services including insect control and pollination. Their welfare in urban environments is threatened by light pollution, roost loss, and pesticide reduction in their prey.
Urban bats face a confluence of stressors that reduce their welfare and population health. Light pollution excludes them from lit foraging areas. Building renovation destroys roosts, sometimes during breeding season when mothers cannot move young. Insecticide use reduces prey. White-nose syndrome causes mass mortality. Urban bats that do survive these pressures provide enormous ecological welfare benefits to other animals by controlling insect populations. Protecting urban bats is both a welfare and ecosystem service imperative.