Welfare and conservation of bat populations worldwide, covering white-nose syndrome, wind turbine mortality, roost disturbance, pesticide impacts, and actions to support bat welfare in human-modified landscapes.
Bat welfare is shaped by multiple converging threats that individually would be manageable but together create a conservation emergency. White-nose syndrome causes individual suffering through metabolic failure as the fungus disrupts hibernation; turbine barotrauma causes internal hemorrhage and organ rupture; roost disturbance during hibernation fatally depletes the fat reserves that constitute survival capital for the winter. Bats are intelligent, socially complex mammals that navigate sophisticated colonial roost structures and engage in learning-based foraging — the welfare of individual bats matters beyond population-level conservation concerns. Supporting bat welfare requires actions ranging from the personal (bat box installation, pesticide reduction) to the systemic (turbine siting policy, cave access management, white-nose syndrome research funding).