iBats is a partnership between Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and The Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) and was originally conceived in 2006 by Kate Jones and Colin Catto. Kate Jones is a biodiversity scientist at ZSL interested in understanding the patterns and processes driving extinction and biodiversity loss and forecasting extinction under different models of global change. Colin Catto was the director of the UK 's National Bat Monitoring Program (NBMP) run by BCT funded through UK's Department of Enivironment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Established in 1996, the NBMP has developed standarised methods of monitoring bat populations both at roost and hibernation sites and also along foot transects using detectors to hear the ultrasonic sounds of bats use for foraging and navigation. 11 out of the 17 resident UK species are monitored by the NBMP using data collected by a huge network of 979 volunteers across 1411 sites. The UK's NBMP relies heavily on a large trained volunteer network to carry out its monitoring. Unfortunately monitoring bats using large numbers of trained volunteers in most parts of the world is not yet feasible. However national biodiversity monitoring is a fundamental obligation under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the EUROBATS agreement.

How to monitor those Irish bats?

In 2003, BCT was invited by the Heritage Council of Ireland to develop methods for monitoring bat populations in the Irish Republic. The challenge facing Ireland was that there was not enough in-country capacity to deliver a statistically defensible monitoring program using the NBMP's volunteer intensive methods. Jon Russ along with Colin from the BCT modifed a technique whereby ultrasonic detectors are attached to cars and ultrasound recordings of bat calls are made along a driven road transect.

This new approach had the advantage that large areas could be monitored in a single evening and it could generate enough data to develop a national monitoring program with a small number of people. In partnership with the Irish Heritage Council and the then newly formed Bat Conservation Ireland, the first pilot was done in 2004 with 5 trained volunteers. In 2006 the Irish Rangers were recruited to extend the volunteer monitoring network capacity. This technique has now been adopted by the Irish government as the official annual monitoring technique for three bat species and Bat Conservation Ireland are expanding from the car survey to other more volunteer intensive methods as their network develops.

Car transects spread to the UK

After the success of the Irish survey, Jon and Colin from the BCT were interested in using the technique to deliver regional monitoring of bats in the UK (i.e. Scotland, Wales, South West) and to include monitoring for other species that were not included in NBMP. BCT worked in partnership with Mammals Trust UK to improve the protocols and extend the monitoring to non-bat mammals along road networks. The new protocols were piloted with volunteers from the Hertfordshire Bat Group and the first national survey was conducted in 2005 with 9 groups participating across the country (4000 km driven). Further surveys and volunteer recruitment for 2006 are underway.

Europe and beyond.....

Colin saw the potential for using the car transect protocols to develop a standardised bat monitoring program across Europe and as a mechanism for delivering national monitoring in countries with limited resources to meet CBD and EUROBATS obligations. An achievable project such as this would also act as a focal project to develop national expertise and volunteer networks to monitor biodiversity. In discussion with Kate Jones, together they saw the potential of extending this method even further to develop global monitoring networks and to use the generated data on bat distribution and abundances to assess the impact of global change on biodiversity.

iBats was established as a focal point for this idea and the first iBats project was set up in May 2006 in Romania and Bulgaria with funding from The Darwin Initiative (with additional funding from The Rufford Foundation and Bat Conservation International). In partnership with the Romanian Bat Protection Association (RBPA), the first workshop was held at Cefa villages in the Transylvanian region of Romania in July 2006, training volunteers and providing equipment for 7 survey groups. Data collection started in the summer of 2006 and is currently ongoing. iBats Bulgaria ( with the help of the The Green Balkans and The Bulgarian Bat Research and Protection Group) held their first training workshop in May 2007, and are set to drive their first transects this summer. We have pilot projects planned for Hungary, Moldova, Madagascar, Thailand and Mongolia for this year - so watch this space!

Becoming involved

iBats is looking for more country partners to become involved in the program. We are interested in firstly generating base line bat distribution and abundance data, secondly developing and training existing volunteer networks for long term sustainable monitoring, and thirdly using the data to inform global and national biodiversity policy. We welcome enquiries from interested parties - please contact us!