Bats in Europe are regular churchgoers. In fact, they often take up residence in the quiet upper areas of a church, whether an attic, steeple, or belfry. Those areas don’t tend to be that popular with human congregants, so for decades—and in some cases hundreds of years—bats like the brown long-eared bat Plecotus auritus would roost in churches.
In some cases, having bats in residence is a problem. Like in the English churchesthat are having to figure out how to deal with massive amounts of bat guano. But in Sweden, where the brown long-eared bat lives, the bats tend to be fairly unnoticeable unless you’re looking for them.
Biologist Jens Rydell was looking for bats. He had surveyed Swedish churches in the 1980s for bat populations living in their attics. Then, he repeated the study in 2016 to see if the populations had changed. It turns out, there was a noticeable decrease in bats, and the churches where the flying flock had fled all had something in common. They’d decided to let their light shine.
For the most part, the colonies that disappeared in the 30 years between surveys were located in churches that decided to install floodlights to show off their architecture at night. In one case, the lights were installed on the interior of the church, to better show off some architectural details.
Read more at Popular Science
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