Bat Conservation, how you can help our flying featherless friends.
Channel: tricitiestv
Date: 2022-12-25

Did you know that of the 5,000 plus species of mammals known to man, over 1,400 are various species of bats ? And of the seventeen species of  bats known to live in Canada between ten and eleven species live here in the Tri-Cities region.

John Saremba, conservationist, environmentalist, and  member of the Burke Mountain Naturalists would like to bring awareness of our local bat population and encourage Tri-Cities residents to do what they can to help them flourish. 

Both loss of habitat due to human development and use of pesticides have taken their toll on our local bat population and that of bats around the world.

Mr. Saremba would like to encourage more people in the agricultural industry to consider more natural means of controlling insects including the use of bats themselves which can be a great benefit to pest control if they are not prisoned through the use of pesticides. 

While there is little that we, as individuals, can do about the impact of human development, Mr. Saremba suggests that by building "bat boxes" and mounting them in our back yards, we can each have our own positive impact on the bat population.

While some of the species of bats that live here in the Tri-Cities are known to migrate to the southern States during the winter months, the majority hibernate from October to March and any extra refuge that we can provide for them makes a difference.

Tune in next time when Mr. Saremba joins us in studio to talk about the work that is being done here in British Columbia to minimize the impact of  White-Nose Syndrome that has devastated bat populations around the world.