B.C. bat count program seeking volunteers to fill in blanks on province’s populations

The B.C. annual bat count, as it sounds, is a province-wide survey of bats.

And the Okanagan Bat Program is encouraging people to go to bat for bats by counting bats instead of sheep for a few evenings.

The counting statistics could help fill in some of the blanks when it comes to bat science in B.C.

“We know so little about them,” said Ella Braden of the Okanagan Community Bat Program. “We don’t know how many they are, we don’t know exactly where they live.”

Braden says if you have some living near you, or you know of a colony roost, counting them is simple.

Braden says all you need “is a desire to sit outside in a lawn chair and go into a zen state where you count bats for about an hour.”

The best time to start is about 20 minutes after sundown, when bats are coming out of their roosts, like the one located at the historic Peachland School.

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Peachland has embraced the bats, developing an educational experience around them that includes a live camera view of the attic roost in what is now the town’s visitor centre

“The colony in the attic has been here for decades,” said Darlene Hartford of the Bat Education and Ecological Protection Society.

Peachland now prides itself on its bats and has become known as the second-most bat-friendly town in B.C.

The society is heavily involved in the counting project.

“We count bats every Friday night during July and August,” said Hartford, “but four of those counts are the official counts and our first one is June 11th.”

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For more information about the count, visit this website, where’s there’s also a form for any count information you collect.

The count runs from June 1-21, before pups are born, and between July 11 and Aug. 5.