Public Notices

Initial results: PCCA/CCBS Cooperative Agreements Grant to study bats in the high desert east of Bakersfield!

The PCCA (our parent organization) and the Central Coast Bat Survey (CCBS), under a three-year (2019 – 2022) grant to study bats in the high desert of Kern & Inyo counties through the California State Parks, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation (OHMVR) Division, Grants and Cooperative Agreements Program has found a diverse but not unexpected bat cohort occupying the subject area. Our study is investigating the relationship between bat occurrence and off-highway vehicle (OHV) use on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in the Jawbone-Butterbredt ACEC and along the eastern slope of the Southern Sierras where limited OHV use is allowed.

Even in this high elevation desert where temperatures often fall into the 20-degree F. (-6.7 C.) range, we have found several species of bats to be active on all but the coldest nights, and modest activity levels whenever temps are in the 40-degree F. (4.4 C.) and higher range. Our current species cohort of winter-detected active bats includes these species:

              • Hoary Bat
              • Big Brown Bat
              • California Myotis
              • Mexican Free-tailed Bat
              • Silver-haired Bat

Note: we expect that other species (for example, Western Small-footed & Little Brown Myotis) are present but hibernating, especially at upper elevation locales.

Our summer cohort includes all of the above bat species as well as:

              • Canyon Bat
              • Pallid Bat
              • Western Red Bat
              • Western Small-footed Bat
              • Little Brown Myotis
              • Long-eared Myotis
              • Long-legged Myotis
              • Yuma Myotis
              • Western Mastiff Bat

Expected bat species missing from our data sets include:

              • Spotted Bat
              • Townsend’s Big-eared Bat

Finally, bat species that have been recently documented to have expanded their regular occurrence range northward within the state of California and may also occur within our study area (that is, species that we will continue to scour our data for) include:

              • Western Yellow Bat (a giant palm dwelling species, non-native plantings of which appear to be the impetus for this species’ range expansion)
              • Big Free-tailed Bat (a wandering species detected as far north as Canada (irregularly) but now a regularly occurring species along California’s Central Coast as far north as San Luis Obispo County)

Help name the Pallid Bat our State Bat!

Sign the petition here.

Naming the Pallid Bat (Antrozous pallidus) as the official state bat of California will promote:

  • an appreciation of the benefits of bats to the people and economy of California

  • education about their ecological importance, and

  • conservation of bats in the state of California where bats, due to widespread and varied agriculture, may provide billions (yes, billions!) of dollars in pest control benefits.