Northern myotis population preservation efforts under way nearColumbia River system’s Kinbasket Lake<\/p>\n
An international research project\u00a0in the northern reaches of the Columbia River is taking a hard look at the decline of keynote\u00a0bat populations in a bid to help area ecosystems survive and thrive.<\/p>\n
Efforts to preserve a population of northern myotis \u2013 an endangered bat species that used to be found throughout eastern B.C., but whose range has been contracting to the central Interior \u2013 are under way near Kinbasket Lake, a sprawing reservoir north of Revelstoke and Golden.<\/p>\n
The Wildlife Conservation Society, a non-profit based in New York City but with offices across the globe, is participating in two projects near the lake to study and support northern myotis populations: on the south shore of the lake, researchers are planting fake bark to mimic the old-growth trees where the northern myotis roosts, and on the north side they are using radio detectors to determine how many of the bats are present in logged areas.<\/p>\n
Northern myotis pups require a delicate balance of humidity and temperature to survive to adulthood, and their mothers will seek out roosts with the proper \u201cmicroclimate,\u201d moving their pups to new roosts about every one and a half days, according to Dr. Cori Lausen, the Society\u2019s director of bat conservation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey only have one pup per year, and they\u2019re extremely picky about what temperatures and humidity conditions they have for those pups,\u201d Lausen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The species\u2019 precise needs also make them a bellwether for the rest of the ecosystem\u2019s health \u2013 if there are enough resources for the northern myotis to survive, it\u2019s a pretty safe bet that other species in the area are being supported, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey need to get everything they need in that forest: places to roost, places to feed, the ability to move around and get the right microclimates every day. I always think of it as the Goldilocks approach,\u201d Lausen said. \u201cIf you can keep that species on the landscape, then it means you\u2019re keeping these intact pieces of forest on the landscape. And that\u2019s going to allow you to have a lot of other species as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
And when bat populations thrive, they provide natural pest control that helps the rest of the forest thrive \u2013 not to mention saving farmers and the Province thousands of dollars on pesticides and biocides, Lausen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout bats, things are thrown off-balance and we end up having to respond. In our forests in B.C., that response is through biocides,\u201d she continued. \u201cSomething a lot of people may not know is that biocides are being sprayed all over this province to manage the forest. It\u2019s because of pest outbreaks, especially in these young forests where there\u2019s really no bats being reported because the trees are too young.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Lausen and her team are working to understand what the northern myotis needs to survive in areas that have been logged, and if artificial old-growth bark can make a suitable replacement for the real deal.<\/p>\n
Logging may not be an automatic death sentence to bat populations, Lausen says, but it needs to stay within the limits of what northern myotis colonies can sustain. One of the project\u2019s goals is to identify those limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe part we want to understand is, can we keep this species on the landscape and still have timber harvest?\u201d She said. \u201cWe think yes, but there\u2019s got to be this critical mass of the size of the [old-growth] patch, and interconnectedness of patches, to allow the species to reproduce.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reproduction is the key word \u2013 the northern myotis, like other bat species, can live for decades, even after their habitat has been disturbed by logging, according to Lausen. What matters for the survival of a population is whether individuals are reproducing, and if they have enough habitat for their pups to survive to adulthood.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still unclear if the northern myotis population near the Kinbasket is reproductive, Lausen says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s these tiny little old-growth patches that have been left after the timber harvest,\u201d Lausen said of the Kinbasket. \u201cThat\u2019s what got us thinking, \u2018Wow, how small can a patch be? Can they still have young in these patches?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we watching the last of this population?\u201d<\/p>\n
Misplaced conservation<\/p>\n
When it comes to bat conservation, Lausen worries the B.C. government is missing the forest for the trees. She pointed to the province\u2019s suggestion that Kootenay-area loggers leave one old-growth tree in a patch for the northern myotis to use, which she says is insufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s misplaced conservation. If you save a tree for a bat, you really haven\u2019t saved any bat habitat,\u201d Lausen said.<\/p>\n
According to Lausen, in 2018 the Ministry of Forests wrote a document outlining the best management practices for bats, to give foresters guidance on how to leave some bat habitat intact. The document was never released, but Lausen hopes research on B.C.\u2019s northern myotis populations could push the Province to take bat conservation seriously.<\/p>\n
In Lausen\u2019s experience, grassroots conservation efforts can be more efficient than waiting for conservation policies to work their way through the bureaucratic maze of the provincial and federal governments. She said in the past, she has spoken with loggers and explained the importance of keeping bat habitats intact, and they\u2019re often receptive. She added that discussing conservation needs with First Nations can be effective as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe start locally to try to get conservation happening on the ground because we know everything else \u2013 publication, policy, practice, all those changes \u2013 they are going to be years down the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that vein, Lausen suggests that people interested in promoting bat conservation join their local community forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocals helping to make decisions about forests, trying to keep these intact patches of old and mature forests \u2013 it\u2019s increasingly important,\u201d Lausen said.<\/p>\n
The Wildlife Conservation Society accepts donations, and people can direct their donation specifically to the bat program or to any of their other programs, she added.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, people need to be aware of the threats facing bats, and the consequences of losing these vital animals, Lausen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe depend on bats,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s too late in some areas, but it\u2019s not in most areas. We can still get in there and try to keep them reproducing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern myotis population preservation efforts under way nearColumbia River system’s Kinbasket Lake An international research project\u00a0in the northern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-100389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}