Cave bats are becoming increasingly difficult to find in Nebraska, thanks to the disease white nose syndrome.
So, imagine the excitement when a little brown bat — a cave-dwelling species — recently flew into a researchers' mist net at Platte River State Park.
This was the first confirmed sighting of a live little brown bat in eastern Nebraska since 2016. Now it provides hope for the survival and possible recovery of a species once thought lost.
On the night of May 24, Nebraska Game and Parks biologists and researchers from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Kearney captured the bat over Decker Creek while conducting a spring migration survey.
"The little brown bat has always been rare in eastern Nebraska," said Brett Andersen, Game and Parks Wildlife Diversity Program Manager, who caught the bat. "In the Panhandle, we would catch 50 to100 a night in some places, but in eastern Nebraska, I think I had only ever caught one since I started netting in 2014."
Nebraska's State Wildlife Action Plan, the Nebraska Natural Legacy Project, lists the little brown bat, one of 13 bat species in Nebraska, as a Tier I Species. This designation is for the state's most at-risk species, meaning the little brown bat is vulnerable to extinction and is a critical priority for state conservation.
Unlike its more common relative, the big brown bat, which regularly lives in bat houses, barns, and attics across the state, little brown bats are more selective. During winter, they need access to hibernate in caves and mines that are arguably as rare in Nebraska as the bat itself.
Cave bats, like the little brown bat, have become even more difficult to find in recent years after the fungal infection, white nose syndrome, was found in Nebraska in 2015. WNS has caused significant population declines across North America and bat researchers have noted that cave bats have all but disappeared in eastern Nebraska.
Andersen said the captured bat likely lives locally and did not migrate from another state.
"The surrounding states are all WNS positive, and these bats don't typically move long distances," Andersen said. "While the chances of catching them in a mist net are low, we are more likely to find them by conducting cave and mine surveys. Unfortunately, because we only know of a few mines in eastern Nebraska, it is difficult to determine whether there are any more left."
Andersen said the capture has renewed interest in the species — and a desire to increase survey efforts in eastern Nebraska through the Motus migration project, a global effort to track the movements of small flying animals.
So far, this network has not detected the little brown bat researchers tagged. Andersen said the bat likely moved out of the area or is roosting somewhere the signal won't travel through, such as underground or under a tin roof.
But researchers will continue monitoring and surveying, and the information gained through these efforts and the Motus project could help aid in the recovery of little brown bats and other at-risk bat species in Nebraska in the future.