Bats provide irreplaceable ecosystem services but face welfare threats from disease, habitat loss, and human persecution. Bat welfare and conservation are deeply connected.
Bat welfare spans individual rescue situations and population-level threats. Individual bats found injured on the ground require specialist wildlife rehabilitator care — they are not animals that members of the public can safely or legally handle in most jurisdictions. The welfare of bats in building roosts is threatened by eviction during breeding season, when disturbance can separate mothers from pups. At the population level, white-nose syndrome — a fungal disease — has caused catastrophic mortality in North American bat populations, representing enormous welfare suffering on a scale rarely seen in wildlife disease events. Wind turbine mortality is an emerging welfare concern that represents a genuine conflict between renewable energy and wildlife protection. Bat houses and roost provision can support displaced bats.