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If you have any questions on the information presented, or require additional report data or attachments, please contact the Report Contact
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The main objective of Wildlife Conservation Society Canadas (WCSC) North American Bat Monitoring (NABat) program in BC is to establish a robust baseline of bat presence and activity data to enable the quantitative evaluation of future impacts of stressors to provincial bat populations.
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Author: Brian Paterson, Jason Rae,
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Old Reference Number: PEA-F23-W-3630
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Old Reference System: FWCP - Fish Wildlife Compensation Program Peace
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Date Published: Jun 2023
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Report ID: 62217
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Audience: Government and Public
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Some of these stressors include White-nose Syndrome (WNS), which has caused massive population declines in several species of Myotis, habitat loss, which affects all bat species, and fatalities to migratory tree bat from wind energy projects. The invasive fungus that causes WNS, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), was recently confirmed from guano samples collected in 2022 from southern BC and WCSC researchers previously detected the fungus in guano samples from Alberta in 2021. COSEWIC recently assessed the three species of migratory tree bats, Hoary Bat (Lasiurus cinereus), Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans), and Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis), ) as endangered, based on substantial population declines due in large part to fatalities from wind turbines. Five of the eight bat species that occur in the Peace Region of BC now qualify as endangered under international criteria. Both the recent Pd detections and COSEWIC assessments enhance the urgency of our efforts to collect baseline bat data across BC against which to monitor future population changes.
Home to at least 15 species of bats, British Columbia is the province with the greatest bat diversity in Canada. Twelve of these species are hibernating bats that are at risk of population die-offs due to WNS. In the Williston Basin, eight bat species are known to occur (Paterson et al., 2020), three of which likely leave the area during winter and five that hibernate locally. Two of these hibernating species, Northern Myotis (Myotis septentrionalis) and Little Brown Myotis (M. lucifugus), are listed as endangered under Canadas Species at Risk Act (SARA) and have recovery strategies (ECCC 2018). WNS has already caused a decline of greater than 90% and in many cases up to 99% to eastern Canadian populations where the fungus is present (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec) compared to baseline data collected prior to WNS establishment (Vanderwolf and McAlpine 2021). The three remaining hibernating species found in the Williston Basin, Long-eared Myotis (M. evotis), Long-legged Myotis (M. volans), and Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus), also have a demonstrated susceptibility to WNS.
The three migratory bat species in northern BC are expected to experience lower mortality from WNS but may harbour the fungus without showing diagnostic signs of WNS. Unfortunately, these three migratory species were recently assessed by COSEWIC as Endangered in Canada due to population declines largely associated with collisions with wind turbines (COSEWIC 2023).
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Report Type
Subject
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Invertebrates - Terrestrial |
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Mammals - Bats |
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Region - Peace |
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