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Can Bat Boxes Help Canada’s Troubled Mammals Endure Tough Weather?
Bat boxes can help alleviate habitat loss threatening many of the troubled species in Canada, especially in the summer as they encounter stormy weather
Birds aren’t the only wildlife that could use some shelter from the elements in people’s yards. Bats need some housing, too, during the summer and certainly before winter comes around again.
Bat boxes can help alleviate habitat loss threatening many of the troubled species in Canada, especially in the summer, as they encounter stormy weather. So, now is the perfect time to build a cozy shelter for the flying mammals.
To build awareness of Canada’s 19 species of bat, of which, nearly half are at risk from various threats, and to help people craft the perfect bat home, the Canadian Wildlife Federation (CWF) is collaborating with the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada (WCS), University of Waterloo, Karen Vanderwolf and 1,400 citizen scientists to operate the Canadian Bat Box Project. It is aimed to find the ideal bat box design and placement.
“A thread through all of these threats to bats, in particular, is that they’re all human-caused, or human-induced,” said James Page, species at risk and biodiversity specialist for CWF, in a recent interview with The Weather Network.
“We know that a lot of people put up bat boxes or houses to give habitat for bats [so they can] give birth and raise their young…kind of the way people would put up birdhouses in their backyard.”
