Researchers are not using ordinary smartphones to find New River Gorge’s bats. They are attaching tiny cellular-network transmitters to individual bats, then using the signals to follow movements after the animals leave abandoned mines at night. The approach helps answer a question that mine-entrance counts and stationary microphones cannot: where does each bat go once it disappears into the forest, cliffs and river gorges?
How scientists are tracking bats after dark
Graduate students from Virginia Tech, biologists with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources and National Park Service staff are capturing, tagging and releasing bats in a project reported by West Virginia Explorer on September 30, 2026. The work focuses especially on Indiana bats, Virginia big-eared bats and other threatened species.
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The transmitters are small and temporary
Each cellular transmitter measures about 3.75 centimeters and weighs 0.21 grams. Researchers temporarily glue it to a bat’s back. The tag is designed to fall off naturally after roughly one to two weeks, so the animal is not carrying permanent equipment. During that period, the transmitter can provide near-real-time information about the bat’s movements.
- Biologists capture a bat and identify and examine it.
- They attach the lightweight cellular transmitter with temporary adhesive.
- The bat is released at or near its mine or roost site.
- Researchers receive location information while the tag remains attached.
- The transmitter drops off naturally after about one to two weeks.
This is cellular telemetry: the device sends a signal through cellular networks. It is not a phone microphone listening for echolocation and does not mean a visitor can track a bat with a standard smartphone.
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Why a bat can seem to disappear
New River Gorge contains roughly 155 known mine portals, and more than 50 have bat-friendly gates, according to the 2026 report. Researchers have monitored bats at 41 portals since 2002, although individual portals were not necessarily monitored every year.
A bat can emerge from a mine after dark and quickly move through deep forest, steep cliffs, waterways and other abandoned mine workings. A count at the entrance records an animal leaving; it does not show its feeding area, travel route, day roost or next stop. Cellular tags extend the observation beyond the portal and follow an individual across that larger landscape.
What the 2026 project is trying to learn
The tagging effort is being paired with the park’s fall “Bat Blitz,” when teams capture bats for identification, health checks and release. Nearly 300 bats were captured, examined and released during the 2025 Bat Blitz.
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Researchers are particularly interested in how federally protected bats use the area after leaving mines. Movement data can reveal whether a bat remains near the mine, crosses the gorge, follows a waterway, uses forest edges or reaches habitat that had not been associated with that mine before. Those details can inform protection of roosts, travel corridors and feeding habitat.
White-nose syndrome changed the numbers
National Park Service documents list ten bat species in New River Gorge. They include the federally endangered Indiana bat and Virginia big-eared bat, plus the federally threatened northern long-eared bat. White-nose syndrome has caused severe declines in some populations.
The Grandview Bat Condo example
The Grandview Bat Condo contains more than 1,000 plywood sheets and can shelter over 10,000 bats, according to the National Park Service. Visitors once counted more than 1,000 emerging bats on some evenings. Since white-nose syndrome was discovered in the park, typical emergence counts have fallen below 50.
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That change explains why researchers need more than a single visible count. A low emergence number may reflect disease-related losses, a change in roost use or bats moving elsewhere. Tracking individuals helps distinguish those possibilities, although a short tag deployment cannot by itself measure the entire park’s population.
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| Feature | Cellular telemetry | Acoustic monitoring |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of information | Movement of a tagged individual bat | Bat presence and likely species at a detector site |
| Coverage and timing | Near-real-time locations during the tag’s roughly one- to two-week life | Overnight recordings collected at fixed locations |
| Animal handling | Requires capture and temporary attachment of a transmitter | Passive listening after detectors are installed |
| What it can reveal | Routes, habitat use and destinations after release | Which species are flying through an area, based on their calls |
| Consumer relevance | Specialized research equipment and a coordinated study | Commercially available ultrasonic bat detectors can support educational field observation |
National Park Service explains that “bats use echolocation to navigate and catch insect prey during the night.” Acoustic detectors record those ultrasonic calls; by analyzing them, biologists can identify which bat species are present in an area. Acoustic monitoring does not follow one named bat from a mine to a feeding site, while a cellular tag does not identify every untagged bat passing a location.
What acoustic surveys found at the gorge’s cliffs
In an NPS cliff study, overnight acoustic detectors were placed at the bases of cliffs. Researchers collected more than 45,000 bat-call recordings across 51 sites, with each site visited three times. The recordings identified all three federally endangered bats in the study, as well as the eastern small-footed bat.
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Researchers did not see bats or guano on the inspected cliff faces. The result shows why the methods complement one another: visual searches can miss animals using inaccessible surfaces, acoustic detectors can detect flight activity, and cellular tags can show where a particular bat travels next.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to interpret a rise at one mine portal
One portal produced three Indiana bats in 2014 and 125 in 2023. That local increase is encouraging, but it does not demonstrate recovery across New River Gorge. The portal was one site, and monitoring has not occurred at every portal every year. Park-wide conclusions require consistent, long-term data from many locations and methods.
Can your phone detect a bat?
A normal phone cannot replicate this project. Its cellular connection is not a receiver for the research tags, and its built-in microphone generally cannot record the ultrasonic frequencies used in bat echolocation with the accuracy needed for species identification.
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The consumer-facing option is an ultrasonic bat detector, a separate field device that converts or displays high-frequency calls for listening and analysis. It is an educational tool for detecting activity nearby, not a cellular tracker and not a way to locate an individual bat across the gorge.
What people can do without disturbing bats
Give mine entrances, gates and roost structures space, especially during evening emergence. Do not handle bats or attempt to attach equipment. A properly placed backyard bat house is a secondary conservation measure supported by the National Park Service, but it cannot replace protection of natural mines, forests and waterways.
The central finding from New River Gorge is straightforward: the “phones” are tiny, temporary transmitters worn by captured bats. They fill the gap between seeing a bat leave a mine and understanding how that bat uses the landscape afterward.
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