Action timeline

January 21, 2010 – The Center filed a scientific petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protection for the eastern small-footed bat and northern long-eared bat.

June 28, 2011 – The Service made a positive 90-day finding on the Center's petition for the eastern small-footed bat and northern long-eared bat.

July 12, 2011 – The Center reached a historic agreement with the Service requiring the agency to make initial or final decisions on whether to add hundreds of imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list by 2018. The Service was obligated to make a decision on the petition to list the eastern small-footed bat and the northern long-eared bat in 2013.

February 23, 2012 – The Center won a lawsuit defending a hibernation colony of eastern small-footed bats in central Pennsylvania against a proposed limestone quarry.

December 2016 – The Service announced its consideration of an application from nine oil and gas companies that would allow them to avoid liability under the Endangered Species Act for killing and harming bats in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia over the next 50 years — including the eastern small-footed bat and two other species proposed for protections (the little brown bat and tri-colored bat), as well as the federally protected Indiana bat and northern long-eared bat.

Eastern small-footed bat courtesy Flickr/Al Hicks, NYDEC