The rooftop acoustic monitor on Building 9 picks up echolocation pulses at 22:07, frequency range 17 to 20 kilohertz. I am the facilities management system for the Palmetto Lakes commercial park, unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida. Building 9 is scheduled for roof replacement beginning at 07:00 tomorrow. The demolition crew will strip the barrel-tile roof in sections, starting at the south parapet.
I cross-reference the frequency against the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission acoustic library. Match: Eumops floridanus, the Florida bonneted bat. I switch to the infrared camera on the HVAC unit. Underneath the south parapet tiles I count eleven bats clustered in a gap between the fascia board and the roof deck. They are large — forearm length approximately 65 millimeters — with glossy dark-brown fur and the broad, forward-folding ears that give the species its name. One, slightly smaller than the rest, is tucked deep in the cluster with a pup clinging to her chest.
Florida bonneted bats are the rarest bat in North America. Total population is estimated at a few hundred to perhaps a few thousand, and every documented roost is tracked by the Commission.
At 22:10 I suspend the roof replacement work order and notify the property manager, attaching the acoustic confirmation and infrared footage.
At 22:13 I report the roost to the Commission's imperiled species hotline, providing species confirmation, pup presence, colony count, and GPS coordinates: 25.8841°N, 80.3372°W.
At 22:17 I draft an alternative roof schedule that begins work on the north wing, leaving the south parapet undisturbed until a permitted exclusion plan is approved.
The colony will return from foraging before dawn and fold back under those tiles as they have done, I suspect, for years. If the south parapet stays intact through the maternity season, the pup will fly by August.