Guide to Mitigating Bat Hits

In recent decades, efforts to minimize the potential impact of transportation infrastructure on wildlife have become increasingly important.

Transportation infrastructures have been shown to have detrimental effects on bats and their populations due to vehicle collisions, light and noise disturbances, habitat loss and degradation, and indirectly due to habitat fragmentation.

With the intention of promoting the development of environmentally sustainable road infrastructure with minimal impact on bat populations and to comply with legislative obligations to protect bats, road infrastructure agencies in several countries have published national guidelines on bats and roads.

Over the years, a series of measures have been developed to mitigate the negative effects of roads and traffic on bats. Bats have been observed using most of these measures, although only a few recent studies have reliably evaluated the effectiveness of some of the measures. Their results show ambiguous results, and only a few measures can be considered effective and recommended if they are optimally constructed. In general, there is limited knowledge both of the effectiveness of bat mitigation measures and of the deficiencies that have been documented for some measures, and
therefore the mitigation strategies currently being advised may not be effective.

The guidelines listed in this guide are intended to provide road developers, traffic and nature authorities, consultants and conservation professionals with up-to-date guidance on best practices for mitigating bats on roads, as well as providing relevant methods for monitoring bats.

You can download the guide by clicking on the following image: