In May 2012, independent researchers verified something we thought might have been true for years: Researchers tracked a federally endangered Indiana bat from a Tennessee cave to a North Georgia forest, confirming its return to Georgia.
This means the Indiana bat could be utilizing more of the southern end of its historic range than previously known. The finding is significant for the conservation and recovery of this insect-eating dynamo, and potentially in achieving our goal to de-list it as an endangered species.
This is great news for the tiny bat, which is smaller than a human palm and weighs the same as about three pennies. The bat has not been documented in Georgia since 1966, and it is battling a deadly disease across its range, which spans most of the eastern United States.
This is good news for us humans, too. Nationwide, bats consume enough insects to offset at least $3 billion a year in agricultural pest-control services, according to research published in Science magazine in 2011.
For the Georgia Department of Transportation, the presence of the endangered bat was not a surprise. Three years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Federal Highway Administration asked GDOT to begin planning for the probability that the Indiana bat was either already roosting in North Georgia trees or would be soon.
Here’s how the process works: The Federal Highway Administration provides 80 percent of the funds for GDOT roads and oversees the projects. The administration consults with the Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure compliance with the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws. (We are consultants; any decision to move ahead with, delay or stop a project rests with the Highway Administration.)
Among our recommendations has been for GDOT to survey the North Georgia areas where the bats are likely to roost in trees. By completing those surveys, future road-building projects can be streamlined, saving time and money.
We work hard in many other ways to expedite our reviews. We have a dedicated biologist providing technical assistance on the front end of the road-building process to speed approvals from the Federal Highway Administration. Even the most complicated consultation takes Fish and Wildlife no longer than 135 days.
Just last month, we signed off on an agreement with GDOT and the Federal Highway Administration identifying small-scale road projects where we can greenlight the purchase of rights of way to help streamline the state’s planning process, even before the bat surveys are completed. In these cases, we can do this because the projects are small, and we don’t expect any impacts to the species.
We live in these communities, and our employees are committed to working with partners to ensure this state and our citizens not only benefit from robust local and regional economies, but benefit from healthy natural resources that we all need to survive and thrive.
