Endangered bats confirm importance of connected green space
Lindsay Smith, Marketing & Public Relations Manager
The discovery of a colony of little brown bats in a barn on a private property in Aurora piqued the curiosity of local scientists, including those in the conservation department at Summit Metro Parks. What started as the study of a summer maternity colony of the little brown bat species took an exciting and important turn when two federally threatened northern long-eared bats were also found using the barn as a summer maternity site. The creatures were tracked using telemetry, showing flight patterns through Liberty Park’s Tinkers Creek, Pond Brook and Ledges areas. Park biologists noted them utilizing the sandstone rock features at Liberty Park for foraging during their fall swarming season — the time of year at which mating occurs and is a precursor to hibernation.
Bat research has been an important component of our conservation department’s work for the past 17 years. To some, bats can look scary and may even make for unwanted house guests, but their healthy existence is imperative to our ecosystem. White-nose Syndrome, an almost-always fatal fungal infection that affects bats during hibernation, has devastated the bat population both locally and nationwide. Bat numbers are not even close to where they were a decade ago, but Summit Metro Parks Biologist Jason Whittle is encouraged by slowly increasing numbers in the barn. “In 2015, bat counts at the barn site were in the 130s. This year, we counted 256 bats,” shared Whittle.
Summit Metro Parks cares for 14,000 acres worth of natural resources in Summit County — but nature knows no boundaries. Collaboration to connect green space is a holistic approach that benefits the ecosystem in Northeast Ohio. “Liberty Park makes up 3,400 acres worth of more than 4,000 acres of protected land in the areas of Twinsburg and Aurora,” said Whittle. “If you note the green and blue dots on the map (the tracked locations of two individual northern long-eared bats), it’s clear they are going out of their way to travel exclusively through green space, making a point to avoid developed areas.”
This behavior alone is a case to be made for green space. Connecting green space is for the greater good: it can mean life or death for some sensitive species. The barn structure in Aurora that the bats are utilizing is in disrepair. As an attempt to step in with a back-up plan for the creatures should the barn cease to exist, Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) generously provided Summit Metro Parks biologists with a bat box which is housed on a pole donated by the City of Aurora’s parks department.
The new structure sits on land owned by the City of Aurora, but is nearby enough to the current maternity colony site that biologists hope the bats embrace it as their next best option. We’re grateful for partners like ODNR and nearby municipalities that support our efforts. For bats, the future is still unclear. But when conservation-minded organizations and individuals work together, the sum of the efforts can provide hope.
