Scaling Passive Roost Mapping Across State Hibernacula Networks

Kentucky has more than 4,000 known caves, and state biologists are responsible for a Priority 1 NLEB and Indiana bat list that runs into the dozens. One biologist with a headlamp cannot anchor all of them in one winter. This post walks through how passive roost maps aggregate into a state-network dashboard that sits on top of a NABat GRTS sampling frame.

Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources tracks roughly 40 Priority 1 hibernacula for Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) and NLEB. If each site requires two biologists for an entry-light survey, travel, and post-trip data entry, the arithmetic does not close in a single winter biennium survey window. The PLOS ONE review of western hibernacula surveys by Johnson and colleagues compiled 4,549 survey records across 11 western states and flagged that the records lived in disparate formats, with gaps that reflect staffing rather than bat behavior. NABat's coordinating program at USGS now spans state, federal, and tribal agencies precisely because no single agency has the crews to survey everything themselves.