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Twenty three species of bats occur in the territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians. It is generally believed that populations of many of these bat species have declined in recent decades. To protect the bats we need to know where the main hibernation and summer roosts are.

The main aims of this project is to:

survey more precisely for determination the population status and distribution of bats in the Ukrainian Carpathians;

- create and development of database concerning the bat distribution and roosts localisation in the Ukrainian Carpathians Mts. on the base of the investigation results and literature data.

- survey of the Ukrainian Carpathians region for the presence of endangered bat species;

- identify key areas and estimation of critical habitat for bats conservation (SAC) within the territory of the Ukrainian Carpathians/ The most important not yet protected places like key areas and critical areas will be substantiated for legal protection by low.

- raising of public awareness on human disturbance of bats in roosts (via local/regional media), emphasising the role of bats as keystone species within the ecosystem.; f. development of the action plan for the bat species conservation in the Ukrainian Carpathians. The action plan will be developed on the base of created database and it will be given for the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Recourses and existing local nature protection institutions.

Our project is intended to play an important catalytic role by developing information that provides a synthetic overview of bat status and trends, and summarized information and conservation needs. The team will promote the concept of bat conservation both locally and nationally through bat awareness programmes.

Recommendations concerning the protection of rare bat species in the region will be elaborated for the nature protection institution.

The practical results of this project would be an elaboration of proposals for the bat protection.