Bat acoustic monitoring in Western Washington's National Parks

US Geological Survey and National Park Service researchers designed and implemented an acoustic monitoring program for bats in the three large parks of Western Washington, all part of the North Coast and Cascades Network (NCCN) of National Parks.This work was part of the larger NCCN bat population monitoring and white-nose syndrome (WNS) surveillance program, designed to understand bat distribution, activity, and disease dynamics on the leading edge of WNS spread in the state. Data were collected throughout each park along elevational, precipitation, and seasonal gradients. This monitoring program examines questions of interest at the national, regional, and park scale to increase the understanding of bat distribution, occurrence, and seasonal/annual dynamics before extensive spread of WNS in the state. This data release contains acoustic detections of bat species in Olympic National Park, North Cascades National Park, and Mount Rainier National Park during 2019-2020 monitoring.