Guidelines for detecting bats listed as threatened under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

INTRODUCTION

Background

*Note that Nyctophilus corbeni is listed under the EPBC Act as Nyctophilus timoriensis (south-eastern form).

Some of these taxa are undergoing or may be subject to future taxonomic review. Regardless of their current or future taxonomic classification, the definition of a species under the EPBC Act includes subspecies and distinct populations that the federal environment minister has determined to be species for the purposes of the Act. Each ‘species’ has met the criteria required for listing in these categories, based on nominations assessed by the Threatened Species Scientific Committee and approved by the minister. Listings are subject to change, and should be checked for currency on the website of the Australian Government.

Australia’s threatened bats are diverse in form, habit and relative abundance, and as such, the survey guidelines presented here have been written for each individually, rather than for categories of species with similar habit. State survey guidelines were considered in the review of available literature when developing this document.

The incomplete knowledge of the distribution of many of the threatened bat species is an important consideration. Distribution maps in the literature for these are based on the minimum convex polygon method, which involves joining the outer-most observations to form a distribution polygon. The resulting distribution maps may include those areas that lie between recorded localities, but which have not been surveyed, and extrapolations based on the distribution of suitable habitat for the species. For some species, this may result in an overestimate of both extent of occurrence and area of occupancy. Conversely, some key areas have been sampled inadequately for threatened bat species, and the currently accepted distribution may be greatly underestimated. More precise distribution maps are needed to serve as a basis for deciding whether a proposed project area falls within the distribution range of a threatened bat species, thus triggering the EPBC Act. Since many maps are likely to be inaccurate, and may change as new information becomes available, distribution maps for threatened bat species have not been included in these survey guidelines. The protected matters search tool can be used to assess the likelihood of a threatened species being found in a specific area (see also Step 1 - Conducting surveys in six steps).

Scope of the survey guidelines

The taxa accounts relate to the 10 bat taxa that are classified as threatened under the EPBC Act (see Table 1) as at June 2008. However, it is recognised that the EPBC Act threatened species list is dynamic and that survey guidelines are likely to be applied to some taxa not currently listed. Conversely, it is hoped that with ongoing conservation programs the populations of some taxa will recover and they can be removed from this list.

The survey guidelines are limited to recommending the effort with selected techniques to establish whether a target species is present, absent or in low abundance in a project area. A survey is interpreted as the first step in a process towards assessing the impact of a proposed project on any threatened bat species. The approaches in each species profile should be regarded as a minimum and should be included in any general fauna survey program that seeks to determine the presence of species of conservation significance. If threatened species are found to be present during the survey different techniques may be required to establish if the project area contains important habitat (roost sites, foraging sites, water sources and movement corridors) for those threatened species.

Determining if a survey should be conducted

• 
  contains records of threatened bat species within or adjacent to the project area
  
• 
  includes or is adjacent to known flying fox camps
  
• 
  will affect vegetation containing potential food trees of flying foxes
  
• 
  includes rocky outcrop containing caves
  
• 
  includes historical or disused underground mine workings or other artificial structures likely to be used by threatened bat species
  
• 
  is located in forest or woodland habitats and vegetation associations known to be used by threatened bat species, or
  
• 
  contains water sources where high-flying species such as Saccolaimus saccolaimus may be encountered.
  

If habitat suitable for a threatened species occurs in the area, and an appropriate survey is not conducted to determine presence/absence, the department may follow the precautionary principle and assume that the species is in fact present.