Preliminary assessment suggests that acoustic lures can increase capture rates of Australian echolocating bats

Capture is essential for any field research on bats that requires confirmation of species, sex, maturity and reproductive status, or that involves radio-tracking or marking individuals. However, bats can be difficult to capture. We made a preliminary test of the effectiveness of an acoustic lure that produces ultrasonic simulations of bat social calls for enhancing capture rates in harp traps. Over 102 trap-hours at seven forest sites in...