Banff National Park conducts annual acoustic monitoring of bats as part of the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat). In 2024, the monitoring consisted of 3 stationary acoustic deployments operating between June-26 and July-09, and 2 mobile transects conducted on the nights of June-30and July-01. These data were submitted SENSR for processing and manual vetting. The processing focused on seven bat species known to inhabit the region.
In total 3 stationary detectors operated for a total of 42 recorder nights and in total collected 15129files. Of these, 894 were manually reviewed and vetted. Mobile transect surveys collected 529 files, of which 337were identified as noise by the auto id softwares and were not all manually vetted. The species most recorded and identified was Little Brown Bats (Myotis lucifugus) with a total of101 recordings manually verified.
Key recommendations for the future include modifying the mobile transect route to prevent switchbacks, which compromises abundance measurements, and adjusting the Golf Course and Fenlands sites to be 5-10m away from open water to prevent multiple bats in a single recording.