Bats face multiple threats to their welfare and populations including habitat loss, wind turbine collisions, white-nose syndrome, and persecution from humans who misunderstand their ecological value.
Bats experience welfare harms across multiple human-caused threat categories simultaneously - disease, habitat loss, direct persecution, and industrial mortality. White-nose syndrome causes suffering through the disruption of hibernation and resulting starvation, while barotrauma from turbine pressure waves causes internal injury. Protecting maternity roosts from disturbance prevents the acute welfare harm of pup abandonment. Understanding bats' ecological importance is the foundation for the attitudinal shifts needed to reduce persecution.