Bats are critical ecosystem service providers facing population collapses from white-nose syndrome and habitat loss. Protecting bat welfare means safeguarding roosts, reducing pesticide exposure, and funding disease research.
Individual bats dying from white-nose syndrome experience a prolonged, debilitating death: the fungal infection disrupts hibernation, causing repeated arousal that depletes fat reserves, leading to starvation. Mass mortality events in hibernation caves have killed millions of bats in single winters. Wind turbine fatalities cause barotrauma — internal hemorrhage from pressure changes near blades — that kills animals in flight. Roost disturbance causes stress and pup abandonment during the critical breeding season. Protecting hibernation sites and maternity roosts from human disturbance is a direct welfare intervention achievable at local scale.