How connected ecological surveys are helping create a smarter regional picture of where New Zealand’s bats live and move.
Traditionally, ecological surveys have often operated as isolated snapshots in time — commissioned for a specific project, used to inform a decision, then largely disconnected from the broader regional picture. Connecting the information and increasing access to it, however, is a key way of streamlining work associated with the delivery of infrastructure projects.
Indeed, every survey has the potential to contribute to a growing ecological intelligence network that improves regional understanding, helps direct conservation effort where it matters most, and reduces unnecessary uncertainty elsewhere.
An example is the National Bat Survey – developed by Hawke’s Bay-based The Bat Co. Lab, which is trying to answer a surprisingly simple question: Where are our bats? That remains one of the biggest challenges in New Zealand bat conservation. Despite years of ecological survey work occurring across infrastructure, development and land-use projects, much of the resulting information has historically remained fragmented across individual reports, organisations and regions.
The opportunity now is to ensure those datasets continue delivering value long after individual projects are complete, and importantly, allow future assessments to be streamlined to support projects moving forward.
Building a regional picture
One example is the Echoes Around Te Mata project — a community-led acoustic survey conducted within a 25 km radius of Te Mata Peak between October 2025 and April 2026. What began as a small regional pilot quickly evolved into something much larger. More than 100 participants contributed over 1,400 acoustic surveys across the region. The project generated almost 4 terabytes of ecological data and more than two million acoustic recordings, from which over 69,000 bat detections were identified and mapped.
Perhaps the most surprising outcome was not the volume of data collected, but the level of community participation. People wanted to contribute to something tangible and regionally meaningful.
The project also challenged assumptions. Several distinct high-activity areas were identified, potentially linked to important roosting and foraging habitats. The survey also recorded bats in locations where they had not previously been documented, including on the outskirts of southern Hastings. Equally interesting were the places bats were largely absent. Some areas expected to support significant activity — including large wetland systems such as Peka Peka Regional Park — recorded surprisingly little activity during the survey period.
That matters because better information helps focus survey effort, ecological impact assessments and restoration activity where it is genuinely needed, while reducing unnecessary uncertainty and duplicated effort elsewhere. This assists in both reducing barriers and providing for ecological outcomes.
From compliance to infrastructure
Many businesses are already contributing valuable ecological information through ecological surveys they are required to undertake. The shift now is recognising that these can contribute to something larger than a single consent or report.
A bat survey undertaken for a subdivision, bridge replacement or farm development is no longer just a compliance exercise. When integrated into broader regional datasets, it becomes part of a growing ecological intelligence network that improves understanding of habitat use, movement corridors and areas of lower or higher ecological risk.
In many ways, this is infrastructure. Hawke’s Bay has long invested in physical infrastructure like roads, stopbanks and utilities. But as environmental expectations and planning complexity continue to increase, ecological information itself is becoming an important form of regional infrastructure — helping communities, businesses and decision-makers make better-informed choices over time.
A smarter future for ecological information
The National Bat Survey aims to make contributing to that picture easier for scientists, businesses, consultants, landowners, school pupils and communities alike by simplifying the upload, analysis and mapping of bat acoustic data at a national scale.
Importantly, this is not about asking businesses to do more. It is about extracting more long-term value from information that is already being collected.
Projects like Echoes Around Te Mata suggest Hawke’s Bay is well positioned to help lead that shift — demonstrating how technology, community participation and ecological information can combine to create something far more valuable than isolated surveys alone.
