Researchers are tracking bats with tiny cellular tags at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve — and visitors with iPhones can help collect the data

NEED TO KNOW

• Researchers are fitting Indiana bats and Virginia big-eared bats at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve with tiny cellular tags
• Visitors with iPhones can help collect location data simply by driving through parts of the West Virginia park with Bluetooth and location services enabled
• The park says one tagged bat was detected more than 130 miles from where it was originally captured

Tiny cellular trackers are helping scientists follow endangered bats through a West Virginia national park — and the information could help researchers protect the places the animals need to survive.

Graduate students from Virginia Tech and biologists with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources are working with the National Park Service to tag Indiana bats and Virginia big-eared bats at New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, the park shared on Facebook.

The cellular tags are just 3.75 centimeters (about 1.5 inches) long and weigh 0.21 grams, or about 2% of a bat’s body weight.

Researchers temporarily glue the devices to the bats’ backs, where they remain for about one to two weeks before naturally falling off.

During that time, the tags can provide data showing how bats move across the landscape and which areas of the more than 70,000-acre national park they prefer, according to the National Park Service.

That information is particularly important for the species researchers are following.

Both the Indiana bat and Virginia big-eared bat are federally endangered, and bat populations throughout the eastern United States have suffered severe losses from white-nose syndrome, a disease caused by a fungus that can be especially dangerous to bats during hibernation.

Ten species of bats have been documented at New River Gorge, according to the National Park Service. All are insect eaters, with a single bat capable of consuming thousands of insects in one night.

Seven species in the park also make extensive use of its abandoned coal mine portals.

The park has about 155 known mine portals, according to West Virginia Explorer, and more than 50 have been fitted with bat-friendly gates. The barriers allow the animals to enter and leave while keeping people out of the potentially dangerous underground spaces.

Deep inside the mines, it remains around 55 degrees even when outside temperatures fall below freezing, making the former industrial sites useful habitat for bats that roost or hibernate underground.

Researchers are now hoping the trackers can reveal what happens after the bats leave those spaces and disappear into the park’s forests, cliffs and river gorge.

The data could show how the animals travel across the landscape and help identify areas of the park they use and prefer.

And researchers are getting some unexpected help collecting it.

Visitors with iPhones can contribute data simply by driving through portions of New River Gorge National Park and Preserve with Bluetooth and location services enabled.

The tags used in the study can ping off iPhones, according to the park. If someone with the necessary settings enabled passes close enough to a tagged bat, its location can be uploaded to a database for researchers.

The National Park Service is encouraging people who want to participate to take a safe drive between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on roads in the northern-to-central portions of the park.

“That’s it! You just assisted in bat research!” the park wrote on Facebook. The technology has already shown just how far one of the animals can travel.

“One bat was even picked up over 130 miles away from where it was originally captured, so every data point is important!” the park added.

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Understanding those movements could help researchers determine which parts of the landscape are important to endangered bats at a time when protecting their habitat has taken on greater urgency.

White-nose syndrome can cause hibernating bats to burn through the fat reserves they need to survive the winter, according to the National Park Service. Minimizing human disturbance around important habitats, including the park’s abandoned mine portals, is one way to help protect the animals.

Now, with a tracker weighing barely two-tenths of a gram, researchers can gather information that has historically been difficult to capture — following endangered bats after they emerge into the night and learning where they go next.

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