Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services assistant landscape planner Daniel Flinchbaugh (left) and Penn undergraduate student Nick Tanner (right) with a nearly completed bat box in the Weitzman School fabrication lab of Design (image provided by John Donges/University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine)

To help support local bat populations in the Philadelphia area, the Wildlife Futures Program (WFP) at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) is facilitating the design and construction of a collection of wooden bat nest boxes. The boxes will be installed in campus parks to support the needs and health of bats.

According to the organization’s release, Penn Vet’s WFP is working in collaboration with Penn Sustainability and Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services to combat population decline in Philadelphia’s urban ecosystem by providing these bats with an environment safe reproduction. Five wooden boxes, holding up to 200 bats each, were created at the Weitzman School of Design Fabrication Lab and will be placed around campus to give these bats a place to breed, nurse and hibernation.¹

“Bats are so ecologically important. They feed on mosquitoes and insects that negatively impact agricultural production, and several species of bats around the world are important pollinators,” explained Julie Ellis, BS, MS, PhD, co-director of WFP .¹ “But in urban ecosystems, bats often don’t have access to safe places to form breeding colonies and raise their young. As a result, they end up living in buildings or in the attics of houses, from which they are usually quickly evicted. Our bat boxes are designed to mimic tree habitat and meet the daily needs and overall health of bats.

Due to white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease that kills bats in North America,² the bat population in Pennsylvania has been in sharp decline since 2008. WNS appears as white fuzz on bats’ faces, giving it its name, and affects hibernating bats. For little brown bats like those in Philadelphia, their population has declined by more than 90%, making them an endangered species.

In the spring, bats return to Philadelphia to mate and reproduce before moving to a different geographic area during the year. For this fall, Kaskey Park will house a portion of the bat boxes and several boxes will then be installed in Penn Park in early 2025. These locations were selected because they are located on the established migratory route of bats along the Schuylkill River. In spring 2025, the local bat population will have access to the new maternity spaces to give birth and raise their young.

References

1. Ware C. Penn Vet’s Wildlife Futures Program Launches Philadelphia Bat Habitat Initiative | Penn today. Penn today. Published October 22, 2024. Accessed October 25, 2024. https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/penn-vets-wildlife-futures-program-launches-habitat-initiative-philadelphia-bats
2. What is white nose syndrome? White Nose Syndrome Response Team. Published in 2019. Accessed October 25, 2024.