1991 - 2006. EUROBATS celebrates its 15th anniversary

1991-2006 • EUROBATS celebrates its 15 th anniversary
EUROBATS: 15 years helping bat
conservation in Portugal
by Luísa Rodrigues
The Portuguese bat fauna includes 26
species, 24 in the continental part of
Europe. According to the new IUCN
criteria, in the continent there are three spe-
cies critically endangered, one endangered
and five vulnerable.
Since 1967, Portuguese law has protect-
ed all bat species. They are also covered by
international legislation, such as the Bern
Convention, the Bonn Convention, and the
EU Habitats Directive.
The actual list of Portuguese Special
Areas of Conservation (SACs) includes the
majority of important underground roosts;
some areas also include feeding habitats.
In 1987 the Universidade de Lisboa and
the Instituto da Conservacao da Natureza
started a project to obtain the data required
to prepare a National Cave Bat Conservation
Plan. This project included: a) an inventory
of roosts, b) seasonal visits to the most
important roosts to determine their occupation
throughout the year, c) monitoring
of those roosts, d) tagging of some of the
most common species to map the movements
and distribution of the various populations
and to identify the network of roosts
on which they depend.
The project culminated with the publication
of the Plan, in 1992. This document not
only included the basic biological background
required to preserve our cave-dwelling
bats, but it also identified a strategy for
their conservation. It included recommen-
dations on specific roost protection measures
(including the consolidation of the
ceilings and walls of unstable roosts, clearing
of the flying paths in roosts that can be
blocked by falling stones, partial clearance
of the vegetation that tends to block the
entrances of some roosts, removal of inappropriate
gates, and construction of fences
in the entrances of some roosts), relevant
lines of research, public education, and legislation.
This strategy has defined most of
the conservation work that has been carried
out since its publication.
In 1994, co-financing by the LIFE Programme
and Instituto da Conservação
da Natureza allowed the extension of the
conservation work to the poorly known
non-cave-dwelling species. The first priorities
were to study their distribution in nine
natural parks and reserves and to obtain
some information on habitat use in these
areas; this project involved the search of
roosts, mist-netting and transects with batdetectors.
It provided some useful data on
the status of these species and allowed the
preparation of preliminary recommendations
for their conservation. Later on the
study was extended to four other natural
parks and several reserves. This project also
allowed us to start a line of research related
to one critical aspect of the conservation of
cave-dwelling bats — the identification of
the feeding habitats in the most important
underground roosts. Until now, useful data
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