Why it's so important not to disturb hibernating bats

Female bats have the incredible physiological ability to control when they get pregnant. They mate at the end of the summer, before entering hibernation, but don't actually become pregnant until the spring when they wake

Anja Murray: "In preparation for hibernation, bats must first find a safe hibernaculum — a suitable place for them to hibernate."

It's cold outside and the days are short. Many of us are spending these mid-winter days in our own version of ‘hibernation’.

Bats, though are unique in their approach to surviving the winter. During autumn, they will have been entering occasional ‘torpor’, but once the winter really sets in, they go in to a proper, physiologically induced state of hibernation — a way of adapting to the lack of insect food available through the cold winter — using stored body fat as fuel.