Four parks in the Cumberland Piedmont Network (CUPN) have selected cave-roosting bats as a high priority vital sign for long-term monitoring: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park (CHCH), Cumberland Gap National Historical Park (CUGA), Russell Cave National Monument (RUCA) and Mammoth Cave National Park (MACA). Cave bats were selected for several reasons, including their important ecological role in supporting cave ecosystems, their crucial role in controlling certain nocturnal insect populations and reducing agricultural and forestry pests, and their status under the Endangered Species Act (several bat species are considered “endangered”, “proposed endangered”, or a “species of concern”). All species of CUPN cave-dwelling bats are under threat from the novel fungal disease of bats called white-nose syndrome which has been confirmed in caves at these four network parks. Additional threats to the network’s cave-roosting bats center around habitat loss or impact—which may be caused by human disturbance, in-cave modifications, land use changes above cave roosts, an increase in feral predators (e.g., cats), collisions with wind turbines, and food source impacts from acid deposition, heavy metals, or pesticides. Given the importance of bats to both surface and subsurface ecosystems, and because many bat species rely on cave habitat for their survival, monitoring of bats and their cave roosts is of great importance for managing and protecting bat populations and critical bat (cave) habitat. Monitoring information will increase confidence in manager's decisions and improve their ability to manage park resources and will allow managers to confront and mitigate threats to the park and operate more effectively in legal and political arenas.

Winter in-cave counts primarily using direct visual or photographic techniques will be used to assess abundance each sampling year between 1 January and 28 February. Fifteen bat hibernacula will be censused in years ending with an odd number (e.g., 2017, 2019) at CUGA and MACA, and another 14 hibernacula will be monitored in years ending with an even number (e.g., 2016, 2018) at CHCH, MACA and RUCA.