Okanagan’s annual bat count calling on citizen scientists for help

Counting sheep before bed is so mainstream, now people in the Okanagan are counting bats.

The Okanagan Community Bat Program is looking for volunteers to be citizen scientists and help with its annual bat count starting on June 1, according to a release from BC Bats.

“Female bats roost together in summer and raise their young in maternity colonies,” the programs coordinator Paula Rodriguez de la Vega said in the release.

“Most of the species of bats in B.C. only have one pup per female that are born in June and learn to fly in about three to six weeks depending on the species.”

Male bats don’t help with raising pups so they roost alone in large trees, rock cliffs, boulder fields, or barns and buildings.

The counts are done at maternity roosts around the valley. Last summer volunteers counted 1,089 bats at 339 roost sites around B.C.

A significant number of bat roosts are in occupied buildings, 45 per cent, and 39 per cent are in bat boxes or bat condos.

The annual bat count has been going on since 2012 and the program has collected data on seven bat species through 9,050 bat counts at 1,079 roosts.

“Our goal will be to do at least 950 bat counts in BC, so we can reach 10,000 bat counts in 15 years,“ Rodriguez said.

The bat counts involve sitting around a roost at sunset for an hour and counting all the bats that come out to forage for insects. Each roost site typically gets four counts, two in June to count adults and two in July when the pups start learning how to fly.

Anyone who wants to get involved can go here or send an email to okanagan@bcbats.ca.