The reopening of the Limiana bat cave, in Pallars Jussà (Lleida), will allow for periodic monitoring of this endangered species, a fact that had not been possible until now.
The cova dels Muricecs is one of the cavities with one of the largest colonies of bats in Catalonia, both in terms of quantity and diversity of species.
The Generalitat ordered its closure during the covid and now it has been able to reopen thanks to an agreement between the Llimiana City Council, the environmental entity Renatura Pirineu and the BiBio Research Group. This agreement should make it possible to make bat conservation compatible with guided tours.
Jordi Castillo, a member of Renatura Pirineu, goes to the cave every fortnight and with the help of a flashlight and a camera he counts the animals.
On the last visit to the cavity he counted four different species: a large horseshoe bat, twenty-five Mediterranean horseshoe bats, forty large robber bats and sixty bigfoot bats. In total one hundred and twenty-six copies.
The big-footed bat (Myotis capaccinii) and the great burglary bat (Myotis myotis) are two threatened species of high conservation interest in Catalonia. The Mediterranean horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus euryale) is another of the most endangered species.
Castilló has said that this monitoring is done with the scientific advice of the BiBio Research Group and in the context of the Bat Monitoring Program for all of Catalonia.
This monitoring could not be carried out since 2020, when the Generalitat ordered the closure of the cave due to the Covid pandemic.
The scientific visits that Castilló makes periodically now want to be made compatible with guided tours to disseminate the importance of these animals and raise awareness among the population about the interest of their conservation.
Castilló explained that you can only enter with guided tours organized by the company Zenith Aventura. The visiting period runs from October 15 to May 15. The rest of the year it is closed to the public to preserve the bat breeding colony.
Custody agreements are a management and conservation tool for natural heritage, agreed between the owner of a natural space (in this case the Llimiana City Council) and custodian entities to agree on how to conserve a certain space of great ecological value or patrimonial.
Jordi Castilló explained that the pioneering nature of this agreement between the owner of a bat shelter, an environmental entity and a research center opens up a whole range of possibilities to replicate it in other places in the country. Custody agreements like this contribute to "the conservation of these highly threatened animals," he said.
Due to the importance of the conservation of the cave and the bat colony, a second initiative has emerged: 'National Geographic Explorers'.
This is a collaboration between Portuguese and Catalan researchers, to install permanent and automatic temperature sensors in the Els Muricecs cave, as a pilot test of a large project to monitor temperatures in underground environments.
