Hi - thank you for thinking of the bats. Here at the University of Florida and we have many bats who take up residence in and around our buildings. We have built 3 large bat houses/barns to house around 500,000 bats with the most recent barn built in 2017. It took a few years for the bats to move into the original bat house, but they eventually did. Since then, we work with our staff and experts to incentivize them to move in the fall - after pup season - if we find a new colony taking up residence in a building. One of the unexpected surprises is that our bats are now a spectator event every evening and something that we celebrate.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/bats/Good luck
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Cydney McGlothlin AIA
University of Florida
Gainesville FL
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2021 08:46 PM
From: James Gallagher
Subject: Preserving Historic Buildings that Bats Call Home
My first thought is to relocate the bats. Will they allow you to build a replacement habitat somewhere in the area, and move the bats to the new place?
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James Gallagher AIA
Fayetteville AR
Original Message:
Sent: 12-09-2021 01:54 PM
From: Ronda Bernstein
Subject: Preserving Historic Buildings that Bats Call Home
Acadia National Park is going to restore its historic Rockefeller gatehouses. Here's how we'll protect the imperiled bats that live there.
Preserving Historic Buildings that Bats Call Home
Iconic American financier John D. Rockefeller, Jr., built the Jordan Pond and Brown Mountain gatehouses at Acadia National Park in 1932. He placed them at the entrances to his estate's carriage roads on Mount Desert Island off Maine's rocky coast. American architect Grosvenor Atterbury designed the stone and half-timbered buildings with a nod to historic French architecture, creating a unique "Acadian" design style.
Both gatehouses need extensive masonry rehabilitation, but they are also home to three vulnerable species of Myotis ("mouse-eared") bats. Bat populations have declined by the millions in North America since the emergence of white-nose syndrome, a devastating disease. The National Park Service's mission tasks the agency with protecting these buildings and the imperiled creatures that roost in their nooks and crannies. How can we reconcile these two seemingly competing goals?
Preserving Historic Buildings that Bats Call Home
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Ronda Bernstein
Historical Architect
National Park Service
Southeast Regional Office
Atlanta, GA
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