Carlsbad Caverns National Park alone accounts for 32 of the named-site records for Mexican free-tailed bats in New Mexico, easily the state’s best-known colony, where the park has run public bat-flight programs at the cave entrance for decades. White Sands National Park, the Rio Grande corridor, Gila National Forest, and Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge each contribute a single record, marking scattered feeding grounds well beyond the cave itself.
Reports jump sharply in June, when more than 500 of the state’s 1,637 records were logged, then fall off through fall as the bats migrate south. NatureServe still lists the species S3, Vulnerable, in New Mexico, even though the well-known Carlsbad colony can number in the hundreds of thousands, a reminder that one large, visible roost doesn’t guarantee a secure statewide population.
Full species profile
