Project Overview: Assess the unprecedented impacts of climate change and invasive disease — white-nose syndrome (WNS) — that threaten Yosemite National Park’s 17 species of cliff-dwelling bats, with a specific focus on the connection between human–bat interactions and the spread of WNS.  

How your support helps: Biodiversity in Yosemite National Park is intimately linked to cliff-dwelling creatures that visitors hardly see: bats. These species protect the health of park ecosystems by consuming insects, cycling nutrients, and acting as a food source for other iconic and protected park species. As a result, the unprecedented impacts of climate change and invasive disease that threaten Yosemite’s 17 species of bats have park-wide implications. 

In Yosemite, white-nose syndrome threatens local bat populations. The disease causes near-certain mortality among bat colonies. First discovered in North America in 2006, the disease eradicated 11 million bats in the first five years and is now found throughout California. To address bat mortality from diseases and climate change, Yosemite’s Big Wall Bats Team has developed novel methods and critical research over the past two years to uncover unknowns about where park colonies of bats roost, sleep, raise their young, and hibernate. This data, funded by Yosemite Conservancy, assists park managers in understanding how bat ecology and human interactions are tied to the spread and severity of diseases — including white-nose syndrome — and the impacts of climate-driven landscape challenges within and beyond park boundaries.  

With your support, the study lays the groundwork for long-term conservation efforts through assisting visitors in celebrating and protecting Yosemite’s biodiversity, collecting data to bolster international knowledge of bat ecology, and monitoring for the effects of white-nose syndrome in local bat populations.  

This year: In 2025, this project takes a giant leap forward, building on previous success using the schematic of “find, compile, educate, and collaborate.” In this process, the Big Wall Bats Team will gather data, monitor local bat populations, provide visitor outreach and education, and support nationwide data on bat ecology. This year, the team will also analyze prior data to understand how bats are affected by increasingly severe climatic events — fire and drought — and the arrival of white-nose syndrome in Yosemite. 

Project Partners: Yosemite National Park and United States Geological Survey