Bats provide ecosystem services worth billions annually through insect control and pollination. Light pollution, habitat loss, and pesticide use threaten their welfare and the services they provide.
Bat welfare involves both individual suffering and population-level welfare concerns. White-nose syndrome causes death from energy depletion as bats repeatedly wake from hibernation to conserve energy depleted by fungal infection on their wings; this is a prolonged and stressful death process. Light pollution and habitat loss cause chronic welfare costs through increased foraging difficulty, navigational challenge, and population fragmentation. The welfare dimension of bat decline is often overshadowed by the ecosystem services framing, but bats are sentient mammals that experience pain and distress, and their welfare matters independently of their utility to humans. Conservation programs that protect bat roosts, reduce light pollution, and control white-nose syndrome serve both ecological and welfare goals simultaneously.