Survival and Movements of Banded Big Brown Bats

Between 1932 and 1951, over 67,000 bats have been banded in North America (Mohr, 1952). This gives some idea as to the lack of data for any given species since there are some 36 species of bats found in the United States. The number of big brown bats banded has not been large. The literature based on these banding data contains some instructive information as well as some controversial points. Griffin (1940a) came to the conclusion that big brown bats winter relatively close to their summer quarters while Rysgaard (1942) was of the opinion that they traveled many miles between winter and summer quarters. The greatest distance recorded between summering and wintering localities by Griffin was ten miles while Rysgaard reasoned that since few big brown bats were collected near the wintering quarters in the summer and a few were collected at long distances from known suitable wintering...