Durham Bat Group isn’t a rescue centre, but a number of our members are registered bat carers. If you have found a bat in distress please follow our guidelines then contact the BCT to locate your local carer.

No, bats are a vital part of any healthy eco-system so we really need to look after them, and they are extremely unlikely to do any damage to your house. Even building work can go ahead if you have bats so long as you have the right advice from a professional and mitigate any disruption to a roost. Find out more about living with bats in our blog.

It depends by what you mean when you say surveys? If you are planning building works you need to get a professional survey from a licensed individual. This is different to a ‘research’ survey where someone uses bat detecting equipment to see if bats are present in an environment. We do the latter, not the former.

Sorry, no. A lot of our members have their own consultancies so, to keep things fair, we don’t recommend any ecologist. We also don’t carry out any commercial work.

We’ll certainly do our best. If you want to run a bat walk for your local community or organisation we can see if one of our members is available to support you. Just contact us with the details and we’ll get back to you.

No. All our records are submitted to ERIC so please contact them if you need to do a search for records on an area we cover.

If you think something is happening that will have an immediate impact on the welfare of a bat or a bat roost, call the police for assistance as this is a wildlife crime. If your concern is about a future planning application or building project we advise that you contact your local planning authority. 

Please be aware that during building works a bat roost or habitat may be disturbed or destroyed if the appropriate surveys have taken place before hand and a suitable mitigation licence has been obtained to allow the works to go ahead. The legislation is designed to ensure that any habitat loss is replaced with new habitats and roost options such as access tiles and bat lofts, and work is often carried out under the direct supervision of an ecologist.

If you are planning a career in conservation or ecology, having a bat licence can really aid your CV. Whilst we don’t have an official training scheme, many of our events are run by licenced practitioners and are a great way to get valuable experience and references to include in your submission.

If you want to become a member of Durham Bat Group simply fill in our application form. Once approved you’ll be able to create a login for the website and book yourself onto events.

Membership is currently free, and so are the majority of our events!