As spooky season is upon us it’s hard not to think about Halloween without associating it with bats.
The BC Community Bat Program is encouraging B.C. residents to partake in International Bat Week from Oct. 24 to 31 by considering teaching your kids, grandkids or friends about the wonderful lives of bats.
You can prepare bat trivia questions, take them to your local library to sign out bat books or dress up like a bat. They also recommend for those who want to get proactive to consider bat-friendly gardening. This involves planting native trees, shrubs, or flowers to support the insects that bats eat.
Bat week is a fang-tastic time to appreciate these amazing animals and their benefits. In Canada, they eat insects and in other parts across the world, they pollinate flowers and spread seeds and nutrients.
“In B.C., there are at least 15 species of bats and they are all major predators of insects including moths, beetles, mosquitoes and flies. A single bat can eat up to its body weight in insects each night. Eating all of these insects helps protect our food crops and forests from insect pests, saving farmers and forest managers billions of dollars each year,” BC Community Bat Program Southern Vancouver Island coordinator, Julianna Laspose-Wilde said in a statement.
Bat Week marks the time of year when bats disappear from neighbourhoods and leave their summer roost sites to migrate or hibernate to survive the winter, according to the BC Community Bat Program.
This bat absence means it’s a good time of year to do home improvements that many have delayed to do due to bat presence. For those who have bat boxes, it’s a great time to repair or clean the boxes without disturbing or injuring bats, said Laspose-Wilde.
To report winter bat sightings and to part take in Bat Week activities visit bcbats.ca
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