Main navigation

  • ICOET 2025
  • Registration
  • Lodging
  • Sponsors
  • Program
  • Presenters
  • About

Why Bat Mitigation in Transportation Infrastructure Often Fails, and How We Can Do Better: Recommended Approaches and Lessons Learned from Southern California

Breadcrumb

  • Home
  • ICOET 2019 Conference Program
  • Why Bat Mitigation in Transportation Infrastructure Often Fails, and How We Can Do Better: Recommended Approaches and Lessons Learned from Southern California
Jill M. Carpenter, LSA Associates, Inc.
Mitigation for Transportation Projects
One Bat, Two Bats, Fat Bats, Happy Bats

Loss of roosting habitat is widely understood as one of the major causes of declining bat populations worldwide. While some species of bats have adapted to the use of anthropogenic structures such as bridges and culverts for roosting as more natural roost sites are lost, this roosting behavior also renders these bat colonies vulnerable during structure widening, seismic retrofit, and replacement projects. Efforts made to minimize and mitigate potential impacts to bats during infrastructure maintenance or improvement projects are not always successful because many biologists and environmental planners developing mitigation for transportation projects are not knowledgeable about bats or how to provide appropriate mitigation, there is little published literature available on successful mitigation strategies, and because "one size fits all" mitigation measures are not applicable to bat roosts. After designing and implementing dozens of successful mitigation projects for bats in Southern California, we have developed an informal protocol for creating effective mitigation strategies for transportation projects involving bat roosts. This presentation discusses examples of ways in which mitigation for bats roosting in transportation infrastructure can fail and how to avoid the most common pitfalls. This presentation also proposes a systematic, stepwise approach that can be used for a variety of transportation infrastructure projects to minimize and mitigate potential impacts to bats.

Bats
Bat Roosts
Mitigation
Bridges
Culverts
ICOET 2025 — International Conference On Ecology and Transportation