Sensitive species 



An adult male Plecotus townsendii was captured across an old road 

 along Flat Creek on 28 July. P. townsendii comprised less than 

 one percent of the bats captured during the study, a finding 

 similar to Perkins and Levesque (1989) in Oregon. Mist netting 

 success for P. townsendii over water sites in Oregon and 

 Washington has been poor (Perkins 1993). Due to the low intensity 

 nature of echolocation calls by P. townsendii, detection in the 

 field using a tunable bat monitor is difficult, if not impossible. 

 Therefore, the two primary methods of bat investigation used 

 during this study are poor methods for P. townsendii. Used on a 

 larger scale, surveys of mines and cave-like structures hold the 

 greatest potential for collecting information on P. townsendii. 

 Surveys of potential roost sites during both winter and summer are 

 desirable to see if mines are being used as a maternity roost or 

 hibernaculum (Perkins 1993). 



Management for bat conservation 



Maintaining bat diversity on the Kootenai National Forest and Lolo 

 National Forest requires the provision of suitable roost sites and 

 foraging habitat. Unfortunately, the habitat requirements for 

 some species of bats are poorly understood, and bat populations 

 are thought to be currently declining (Christy and West 1993). 

 The disturbance or destruction of critical hibernacula and 

 maternity roost sites, and the loss of habitat is the major cause 

 for declines in bat populations. In the Pacific Northwest, old- 

 growth forest may provide important roosting habitat for bats. 

 Thomas (19 88) and Thomas and West (1991) found that bats were 2.54 

 to 9.75 times more abundant in old-growth Douglas-fir stands in 

 the Washington Cascades and Oregon Coast Range than in mature or 

 young stands. Low feeding rates combined with high levels of bat 

 activity at dusk and dawn indicate that bats were utilizing these 

 old-growth stands as roosting habitat, and were foraging 

 elsewhere. The reduction of old-growth forest due to timber 

 harvest is likely a significant impact on bat populations. 



Christy and West (1993) state that "The lack of information on 

 basic geographic distributions, habitat associations, and the 

 population status of Pacific Northwest bat species is a major 

 factor hindering the development of alternative forest management 

 proceedures that might protect bat populations." Knowledge of 

 these basic aspects of bat ecology is of the foremost importance 

 for effective management of native bat populations. Relative 

 abundance data and opportunistic mist-netting can provide a means 

 of charting population trends and adding to the knowledge of 

 species distributions. Concentrated monitoring in homogeneous 

 forest stands of a particular age class or snag density may 

 indicate areas important for roosting bats. It is hoped that the 



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