Mid Island’s largest bat colony totals 1,936 bats in 2026
Published 5:30 am Tuesday, July 7, 2026
With little squeaks and the flutter of eagerly beating wings, the central Island’s largest bat colony took to the skies for the first count of the season, where volunteers averaged a slight drop in the population this year.
Located at the North Oyster Community Centre south of Nanaimo, on June 10 volunteers averaged a count of 1,936, consisting of about 1,810 little brown myotis from the attic, and 126 in the bat boxes around the building.
The attic, renovated years ago for the little mammals, is home to the largest known maternity colony in central Island for the species, which serve as insectavores, keeping the mosquito population down. The species is one especially vulnerable to white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungal disease that has wrecked havoc on myotis populations across North America.
Vancouver Island has yet to have a case, meaning that should it ever reach the Island, these counts will provide valuable data researchers can use to compare healthy local colonies to infected ones.
In 2025, the centre reached a new record of 2,085 individual bats, after climbing from an average of 1,823.
To average the count, volunteers are positioned at each exit point to the attic, as well as the bat boxes, holding clicker counters. Each time a bat exits, a volunteer presses the counter. At the end of the night, averages are counted.
While it is a slight decrease, Kathy Doyle, treasurer with North Oyster and Area Historical Society, said she isn’t concerned, since it’s still more than a hundred additional bats when compared to 2024, and there are numerous factors to consider.
“Our second count is down only about 36 bats from our second count last year, which was right up there,” Doyle said. “Everything is sort of in the ballpark for the different years. We’re increasing slowly, it looks like, even though it shows a bit of a decrease for our first count.”
One of those factors, Doyle said, is an additional exit was found at a window in the front of the attic, causing some bats to slip out, unnoticed for the first count of the season.
Doyle said one thing people can do, if they want to support local bat populations, is clean their shoes if they are returning to the Island from somewhere that they know the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome exists.
“If they’re out and about, just cleaning their boots, their hiking boots, their shoes before coming into another area can really make a difference,” she said.
About a dozen community members came out to the first count of the season, including Jon Olson and his family. Jon said it was his seven-year-old son, Cam Olson, who convinced the family of four to volunteer their time to the scientific endeavour.
“It was awesome,” Cam told the News Bulletin, adding that he counted over a hundred bats. “There were so many bats.”
Cam said something he likes about bats is they can use echolocation, which is a natural sonar bats use to fly and find mosquito prey.
“I’m going to come back, for sure,” Jon said. “Cam wants to, so it might just be a me and him thing, we’ll see.”
Anyone interested in volunteering can e-mail Doyle at exlight@shaw.ca.