Summary of Acoustic Bat Population Monitoring Data, Great Lakes Forested Parks Network

WEST, Inc

The Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network (GLIMN) goal is developing an acoustic monitoring program for bats to track populations through time given populations are already stressed from WNS at regional and national scales. In 2015 the Great Lakes Forested Parks Network (GLKN), National Park Service implemented the first year of acoustic monitoring at four national parks: Apostle Islands (APIS), Isle Royale (ISRO), Sleeping Bear Dunes (SLBE) and Voyageurs (VOYA). We will refer the parks by 4-letter code throughout this report, and as “the Parks” when referring to them collectively. Full spectrum acoustic detectors were deployed during 2015 at the Parks to monitor bat activity, bat species present, and seasonal activity patterns. The GLIMN has requested that Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc. (WEST) manually review, identify and summarize bat calls recorded the Parks in 2015. This document is intended to meet the following objectives: 1) manually review and identify to species (when possible) all bat call recordings; 2) summarize acoustic recording metadata (number of survey nights, number of recordings, etc); 3) summarize species presence and relative frequency, and; 4) provide individual park summaries.