Loss of Human-made Roosts (Buildings and Bridges)

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Big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus)
Family:Vespertilionidae

This species readily uses human-made roosts, and is well known to establish large maternity roosts in buildings (Kunz 1982).  However, the loss of a single roost has little impact on the overall population as bats generally have a network of known roosts available for their use (Neubaum et al. 2007a), switch roosts regularly (Mayrberger 2003) and these bats are widespread throughout the state.  Loss of roosts may cause increased energy expenditure and a limited reduction in number of offspring but does not necessarily increase mortality (Brighman and Fenton 1986). Likely use bridges to some degree.