Did you know that the forests and wetlands surrounding the Village of Cumberland home to a very special species at risk called the Little Brown bat? These fascinating creatures also roots in local attics, wood sheds, barns, eves and window frames.
The CCFS is part of the North Island Chapter of the province-wide BC Community Bat Program. The CCFS coordinates local volunteers for this annual Bat Count, a science intiative that monitors the health of local bat populations and helps to increase the number of known roost sites in human-made structures. We’re also all about ‘peaceful coexistence’ with bats and help encourage bat friendly appaoches to roosts in structures.
Seven species have been identified at sites counted in the BC Annual Bat Count. Most common are the Little Brown Myotis and Yuma Myotis. There are also Big Brown Bats, California Myotis, Townsend’s Big-eared Bats, Long-legged Myotis, and Long-eared Myotis.
Want to get in on the action? Join a group of dusk-loving individuals in counting bats – all you need is eyes to see, a phone or clicker to track the bats as they leave the roost, and optionally, a chair!
ORIENTATION – June 1
Learn how to record the data and hear about the importance of bats at our volunteer orientation with expert Tim Ennis on June 1, 8 pm.
BAT COUNTERS & TEAM LEADERS
Sign up officially to be a bat counter or take on a few roosts with friends! Email heather@cumberlandforest.com
BAT AMBASSADORS
More to come on this, but there’s likely to be some exciting opportunities this year to monitor bats beyond the roost count program through DNA sampling (you guessed it, guano!) and tackling White-Nose Syndrome.
BAT PHONE 1-855-922-2287 EXT 25 for local inquiries!Bats on your property? Dead bat found or live bat on the ground? Bat-human or animal contact? Human health related inquiry? Call the new regional bat “hotline”! If bats have returned to the known/ existing roost please call the bat phone or email: northisland@bcbats.ca
We’d love to have you in our Cumberland Forest volunteer list officially, even if you only want to count bats. Please sign up HERE if haven’t done so yet! It’s a new system as of January 2023.
More information on the Cumberland Bat project, and the BC Bat program visit HERE
About the BC Annual Bat Count:
The BC Annual Bat Count is a summer emergence count of bats at day roosts in human-made
structures (e.g. houses, barns, bat boxes). Begun in 2012, we now have data on seven bat species from
5954 counts at 883 sites around the province.
Bats are an essential part of our BC ecology and are of huge economic importance, consuming large
quantities of insects each night. Bats face a wide variety of threats, including habitat loss, increasing
severity of fires, and wide-scale mortality from White-nose Syndrome (WNS).
The Annual Bat Count dataset is a key part of our provincial bat monitoring program, helping to
monitor trends in bat populations and detect declines from WNS. Monitoring will also inform our
policies and management actions to protect and conserve our bats. No private landowner information
is passed along when the count results are shared.