Creating and protecting bat habitat through woodland management, roost provision, and garden practices supports bat welfare and population recovery across multiple species.
Bat habitat creation is one of the most accessible and impactful wildlife welfare contributions available to individuals and communities. Installing bat boxes on appropriate surfaces, creating garden ponds, reducing pesticide use that depletes invertebrate prey, and planting night-scented flowers that attract insects all provide genuine welfare support for local bat populations. At the landscape scale, protecting and creating linear features that bats use for navigation and commuting — hedgerows, tree lines, watercourses — maintains the landscape connectivity that bat populations require. These actions benefit bats who are facing multiple simultaneous pressures: roost loss, prey depletion, climate change, and White-Nose Syndrome.