Bats face welfare threats from white-nose syndrome, habitat loss, wind turbine strikes, and persecution that cause suffering across bat populations globally.
Wild bat welfare is a largely overlooked dimension of wildlife welfare advocacy. White-nose syndrome causes prolonged suffering as affected bats emerge repeatedly from hibernation through fungal-driven arousal, exhausting fat reserves and dying from energy depletion — a process that may involve significant distress over days to weeks. Wind turbine mortality is largely rapid but represents a significant preventable welfare harm from renewable energy infrastructure that can be reduced through turbine-off periods during peak bat migration. Bat persecution and roost disturbance add to the welfare burden. Bats are long-lived, cognitively complex mammals — individual bats may live 20-30 years — whose welfare deserves consideration proportionate to their cognitive capacity and ecological importance.