Of the many caves known in the area, one is known to have been 

 used as a hibernaculum by Plecotus townsendii (D. Center, per. 

 comm) , and two of the larger caves were found to be occupied by 

 four species of Myotis during the summer of 1989. 



The Federal Cave Resources Protection Act of 1988 mandates that 

 federal agencies identify significant caves and manage for their 

 protection. The caves discussed in this report may warrant such 

 management, and the information gathered from this study will 

 assist the federal agencies involved in management of the Pryor 

 Mountain area in making management decisions for those caves and 

 their resources. 



STUDY AREA 



This study was conducted in the Pryor Mountains, approximately 7 2 

 km south of Billings, Montana. The area is primarily federal in 

 ownership, and administered by the Bureau of Land Management, 

 the Custer National Forest, and the National Park Service. The 

 Crow Indian Reservation borders the northern portion of the area, 

 and small portions of private land are dispersed throughout the 

 area. The area ranges in elevation from approximately 1500 m to 

 over 2600 m, and encompasses approximately 500 square km. Nine 

 terrestrial ecosystems have been described in the Pryor Mountains 

 (South, 1979; Table 2), ranging from low elevation red desert 

 salt shrub to subalpine plateau found at higher elevations. 

 Vegetative and ecological descriptions in this report are based 

 upon those descriptions. 



TABLE 2. — Terrestrial Ecosystems of the Pryor Mountains 



Subalpine Plateau 

 Subalpine Forest and Meadow 

 Douglas Fir 

 Rock Outcrop 

 Mountain Grassland 

 Streamside Hardwood 

 Utah Juniper-Blacksage 

 Sagebrush-Grasslands 

 Red Desert Salt Shrub 



METHODS 



Bats are most successfully captured over calm water sources (Kunz 

 and Kurta, 1988; von Freckell and Barclay, 1987), especially over 

 ponds or near the entrance of caves or mines used as roosting 

 sites (Griffith and Gates, 1985) . Water sources were identified 



