Gotham City Project

The Gotham City Project (GCP) is a multi-year initiative aimed at modeling the seasonal occupancy of bats across New York City’s parks and green spaces. Using passive acoustic monitoring, we are documenting species presence, distribution, and activity patterns to better understand how bats use New York City’s many habitats throughout the year.

By understanding when, where, and how bats use New York City, we can develop data-driven conservation strategies to support the health of urban bat populations and the ecosystems they help sustain.

Why It Matters

Bats are critical to healthy ecosystems, providing natural pest control, pollination, and seed dispersal. Yet, in highly urbanized environments like New York City, little is known about their seasonal patterns and habitat preferences.

The data collected by GCP will:

Inform habitat management in NYC Parks and other green spaces
Support conservation planning at local and regional levels
Guide public education and outreach to help communities understand and coexist with bats
Contribute to broader ecological research on urban biodiversity and climate resilience

How the
Research Works

GCP uses passive acoustic detectors that record ultrasonic bat calls to monitor bat activity across multiple park sites in all five boroughs. These recordings are analyzed to identify species and detect patterns over time.

This information feeds into a seasonal occupancy model, a statistical tool that helps us understand which habitats bats use during different times of the year and how environmental changes, urban development, or climate conditions may impact them.

Annual
Updates

2023: Pilot & Baseline Design

In 2023, we launched the Project by setting up a “sentinel network” of parks, at least one in each borough, to create a foundation for long-term monitoring. We tested and finalized our standardized deployment methods and ran repeated surveys throughout key parts of the bat season. This first year also allowed us to build and fine-tune our quality control and call classification process, resulting in our very first citywide dataset of nightly bat detections.

2024: Network Expansion & Standardization

In 2024, we expanded monitoring to include more parks while continuing to collect data at our original sentinel sites to ensure consistency year to year. This second year brought a more refined approach, with multiple surveys per site each season to improve the reliability of our data. With this expanded and standardized dataset, we began building the first versions of our seasonal occupancy models, producing early maps of bat presence across the city. We also improved the way we track environmental conditions — like weather, urban noise, and lighting — to help us better understand the factors that shape bat activity in New York City.