{"id":95118,"date":"2025-09-30T17:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T17:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/95118\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T17:03:09","slug":"irish-bat-habitats-under-threat-how-spotlights-and-leds-are-disrupting-their-ecosystems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/95118\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish bat habitats under threat: How spotlights and LEDs are disrupting their ecosystems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bright lights are increasingly used to display garden features, offer security around properties and even to illuminate monuments and urban features.<\/p>\n

However, LED lights are so intense that they can confuse bats \u2013 and, in some cases, can even delay them leaving their roost by causing them to mix up day and night.<\/p>\n

Worse still, some properties have spotlights and LED lights illuminated throughout the hours of darkness when bats are active.<\/p>\n

This can dramatically impact a bat\u2019s ability to feed or even continue to roost in an area.<\/p>\n

Irish wildlife groups including Bat Conservation Ireland (BCI) have urged people to carefully consider where they install such spotlights and LED lights so as to minimise their impact on bat populations, with \u201clight pollution\u201d forcing habitat loss on many bat species.<\/p>\n

\u201cContrary to common belief, bats are not blind,\u201d a BCI official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile bats tend to rely on a type of sonar, known as echolocation, for orientation and hunting during the hours of darkness, vision is still an important sense for Irish bats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bats use their sight to confirm when night has fallen and it is time for their key feeding period. However, bright illuminations can confuse the process, which is known as \u201clight sampling\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen bats emerge from the roost early in the evening, they tend not to echolocate but rather rely on eyesight to fly from the roost to adjoining treelines or hedgerows,\u201d the BCI official said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A common pipistrelle. Photo: Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cVarious studies have shown that bats\u2019 eyesight works best in dim light conditions. When there is too much luminance, bats\u2019 vision can be reduced, resulting in disorientation.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo much luminance at bat roosts may cause bats to desert a roost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bat feeding behaviour can also be significantly impacted by excessive levels of light, with the bats delaying their departure from the roost and missing peak periods of insect feeding.<\/p>\n

\n

Artificial lighting can increase the chances of bats being preyed on<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Bright lights can also result in insects gathering in huge numbers around the illumination source.<\/p>\n

Some bat species can opportunistically feed on these insect gatherings, but many species of Irish bats cannot do so because they are too sensitive to light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey suffer from insect populations being reduced in traditional feeding areas. In addition, artificial lighting can increase the chances of bats being preyed on,\u201d the BCI said.<\/p>\n

A special guide has been produced for Irish planners and a series of recommendations for householders, in particular that bright lighting be kept well away from known bat roosts and feeding areas.<\/p>\n

Conservation officials are also keen that lighting be kept away from known bat-friendly areas such as river corridors, woodland edges, hedgerows, treelines and lake edges.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s bat population is slowly recovering from a dramatic decline over recent decades.<\/p>\n

Ireland has nine bat species: the common pipistrelle, soprano pipistrelle, Nathusius\u2019s pipistrelle, Leisler\u2019s bat, brown long-eared bat, Daubenton\u2019s bat, whiskered bat, Natterer\u2019s bat and the lesser horseshoe bat.<\/p>\n

Bats play a critical role in controlling insect numbers, which would otherwise damage crops and even livestock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bright lights are increasingly used to display garden features, offer security around properties and even to illuminate monuments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[18,440,19,17,28148,133,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-95118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-ralph-riegel","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}