Abstract
The aim of this study is to provide policy makers with information on where, when and under which conditions bats can be expected to occur at the southern North Sea. This will enable them to take the occurrence of bats into account in marine spatial planning and when developing and implementing mitigation measures in current and future offshore wind farms.
The main research questions of this study are:
1. How is the probability of the presence distributed over space and time at the southern North Sea?
2. What is the migration speed and distance travelled per night?
To answer these questions we performed acoustic monitoring of bats at 14 locations across the southern North Sea in the years 2017-2020. In total we monitored 11,520 nights, with most effort during the active season of bats, which roughly extends from mid-March until November.