Bats face threats from habitat loss, white-nose syndrome, and wind turbine collisions — and their welfare is intimately connected to ecosystem health.
White-nose syndrome deaths involve suffering: infected bats arouse repeatedly during winter hibernation, depleting fat reserves, and exhibit abnormal daytime activity before dying of starvation and immune failure. Wind turbine mortality causes acute trauma — barotrauma from the pressure differential behind turbine blades causes internal hemorrhage. At the scale these mortalities occur, the aggregate suffering is significant. Bat conservation and bat welfare are inseparable — the ecological threats that reduce bat populations cause real individual suffering on the way to population-level decline. Protecting bat roosts, reducing wind turbine impacts, and supporting white-nose syndrome research all reduce both population loss and individual suffering.