Abstract
- With support from Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (IFW), from July— October 2024, the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) conducted a bat acoustic monitoring effort in the Gulf of Maine to better understand offshore bat activity in the context of forthcoming offshore wind development in the region.
- BRI worked in partnership with the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), and fishermen, among others, to deploy Wildlife Acoustics SM4BAT detectors on three vessels that traversed different regions of the Gulf of Maine, five islands, and at two coastal sites.
- Detectors collected data for 223 monitoring nights, with 174 nights of bat acoustic activity.
- Data from vessels included 119 bat passes, representing all migratory tree bats and the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), with the eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis) most often detected.
- Eastern red bats were also found farthest offshore, with one pass recorded 136 km from Cape Cod, MA, and one pass detected within the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)-proposed Gulf of Maine offshore wind lease areas.
- Outreach and communications from this monitoring effort included a publication in Northeastern Naturalist in collaboration with the Canadian Wildlife Service, an ArcGIS StoryMap1, and factsheets of the monitoring results for detector hosts.
- Findings from this effort will help inform and refine continued Gulf of Maine bat acoustic monitoring in 2025 with support from IFW, as well as future monitoring through support from the Maine Governor’s Energy Office.