Zastosowanie budek szczelinowych dla nietoperzy jako nowego rozwiązania w celu aktywnej ochrony mopka zachodniego Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774) w lasach : Use of the ‘crevice’ bat boxes as a new solution for active protection of the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774) in forests

• Main Authors: Rachwald, Aleksander, Gottfried, Iwona
• Format: Text
• Language: Polish
• Published: Polskie Towarzystwo Leśne 2019
• Subjects: forest bats; breeding colonies; nature protection; bat crevice boxes; Barbastelle; Barbastella barbastellus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.26202/sylwan.2018132; https://sylwan.lasy.gov.pl/apex/f?p=sylwan:10:::NO::P10_NAZWA_PLIKU,P10_ARTYKUL,P10_ZESZYT_NEW:16578052004173089/2019_05_435au.pdf,2018132,2019_5

The paper presents the project of a crevice box designed especially for Western barbastelle Barbastelle barbastellus bats. Barbastelle is endangered species of bat protected throughout the Europe and included in Annex II of the EU Habitats Directive. In many forest areas of Natura 2000 Barbastelle is official subject to protection, which imposes certain obligations on the area’s administrator or landowner. Western Barbastelle in forests uses atypical roosts (comparing to most other bats), which are cracks of trunks and crevices under the bark of trees, especially deciduous trees. For this reason, it is most often found in old deciduous forests abounding in such potential shelters. As an endangered species, it often requires active protection, and bat−boxes used so far are not settled by Barbastelles because they do not correspond to their ecological preferences. For this reason, it was necessary to develop a project of boxes that would correspond to the preferences of this species and will be settled by these bats. Typical bat−boxes are the equivalent of tree hollows carved by woodpeckers, while crevice boxes to a greater extent than previous solutions imitate natural cracks in tree trunks. Similar boxes were successfully introduced in the United Kingdom by Greenaway and Hill [2004], and then tested on a larger scale in forests in Poland by Rachwald i in. [2018]. Boxes were successfully occupied by individual bats and by breeding colonies, which does not happen in bat boxes with a traditional construction. The paper contains a concise description of the obtained so−far results of colonization bat−boxes by Barbastelle and a sketch of the newly redesigned box with detailed dimensions (fig. 2). Based on the positive results of experiments with the colonization of this type of boxes, it is proposed to use these boxes as an at least temporary solution for the active protection of Barbastelles in forests wherever there is a shortage of natural shelters. : Sylwan 163 (5): 435-440