Mike,
as you know, bats are stringently protected. It seems to me that if photographers are disturbing the bats as you say, then they are wide open for prosecution, and the photographs are the evidence against them.
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Cheers,
Bob
In the UK and possibly the EU. But you can get a licence to disturb them if you have enough "pull", of whatever form that takes. Modern photographs are probably taken legally or in counties where the legislation is different to here (essentially the same thing) but the techniques used certainly seem to affect the animals' behaviour.
Thanks for the input. I suspect that IR video is the way to go. Dealing with this has certainly opened my eyes to the questionable techniques used by some photographers to get bat pictures.