Awarded to Wildlife Conservation Society Canada to restore natural, and secure anthropogenic, roosting habitat for bats in the RDCK LCF service area.
PROPONENT: Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCSC)
DESCRIPTION: Bats are the longest-lived and slowest-reproducing of all small mammals, making them particularly vulnerable to slow-developing threats. Habitat degradation over decades in the West Kootenay has left limited options for the 13 bat species that spend summer months raising young at low elevations. Four species have adapted to use human structures to raise young, but most bats require trees. And not just any trees. Most tree-roosting bats are crevice-roosting and require cavities under bark and/or within trunks – typical characteristics of old growth trees. While small patches of old growth cedar can be found in parts of West Kootenay, most forests offer young trees with fewer roosting options for nursing bats to successfully raise pups. Significant landscape changes can accumulate over decades, and WSCS is assessing areas in the West Kootenay through a habitat quality lens to enhance maternity roosting areas. Bats support our agriculture and forestry industries with billions of dollars of pest control services, but the associated roost and foraging habitat loss resulting from these industries has negative impacts on bat populations.
This project aims to enhance low elevation roosting habitat for bats. In previous RDCK Local Conservation Fund supported work, WCSC constructed a bat condo at Kuskanook to replace an important lost building roost on Kootenay Lake; and they have constructed 32 tree structures (part of 183 constructed Columbia Basin-wide) to mimic old trees, providing cavities for colonies of reproducing female bats (artificial bark roosts, chainsaw modified snag creations).
OBJECTIVE: The long-term goal of this project is the restoration of natural habitats for bats in the West Kootenay. In the meantime, as younger forests regenerate, WCSC is focused on understanding how to mitigate the impacts of habitat loss that has occurred. Although the roosts WCSC are installing will benefit bats across RDCK Electoral Areas A, D, E, F and H, the potential number of roosts that could be built is significantly higher. Current project objectives are to:
1. Create and assess artificial/modified trees for enhancement of bat roosting habitat, including the installation of guano catchers on all new roost creations (3 in the Slocan Valley), check for and collect guano periodically throughout the summer, create 3 new pole structures that mimic old growth trees using artificial bark in the south area of the Slocan Valley, and create an additional 3 tree-roost structures in a high priority area in RDCK Electoral Area H (exact location to be determined).
2. Monitor for changes in baseline species diversity and relative abundance, and continue to acoustically record bat echolocation calls in the Meadow Creek, Smk’mip, and Summit Lake NABat grid cells.
3. Fill critical knowledge gaps for migratory bat species by continuing to record bat activity at two migration monitors: Duncan Island and Slocan Valley.
PHOTOS: Cori Lausen, Kendal Benesh
