European Bat Night
annual event to raise awareness of threatened bat populations in Europe
The European Bat Night is a popular, annual event to draw public awareness to threatened bat populations in Europe. It is hosted by local nature conservation organisations and attracts a number of ecologically interested people, families, and children. Depending on the local contributors, there are species exhibitions, presentations, workshops for constructing bat houses, and bat walks at night time.
History
The first European Bat Nights were arranged in the 1990s in Poland and France. Since 1997 the Bat Night is organised under the auspices of the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats (EUROBATS). Today the event takes place in several cities and regions in more than 30 countries throughout Europe. It is traditionally held on the last weekend of August, but the definite choice of the date is left to the organisers.
Aim of the event
Bat conservation requires effective publicity as well as the cooperation of private persons, because bats often breed and hibernate in houses, churches and other buildings used by people. The European Bat Night aims to break down the barriers between humans and bats by passing on information about the way bats live and their needs.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “European Bat Night” is annual event to raise awareness of threatened bat populations in Europe. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through European, Night and annual, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “annual event to raise awareness of threatened bat populations in Europe” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2021. The linked authority identifier is Q1377316. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “European Bat Night”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow European Bat Night primary sources, European Bat Night archive and European research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “European Bat Night”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “European Bat Night” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.