The BC Community Bat Program is inviting southern Vancouver Island residents to celebrate Bat Week, a global event from Oct. 24 to 31 that highlights the importance of bats to local ecosystems.<\/p>\n
\u201cBats are remarkable creatures that play a vital role in maintaining the health of our natural world and economy,\u201d said Julianna Laposa-Wilde, BC Community Bat Program<\/a> co-ordinator for the southern region in a release.<\/p>\n With at least 15 different species of bats in the province, Laposa-Wilde noted they contribute to natural pest control by consuming mosquitoes, as well as pests of agriculture and forestry.<\/p>\n \u201cBats also cycle nutrients between aquatic environments where they eat and upland environments where they sleep and poop.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: Bats for bats: Comox named Island\u2019s first bat-friendly community<\/a><\/p>\n Despite their importance, bats face serious threats that they are ill-prepared to withstand due to their low reproductive rates, Laposa-Wilde said, as most B.C. bat species give birth to only one pup per year.<\/p>\n At this time of year, bats are fattening up for their winter hibernation, devouring many insects every night.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cAs they migrate to their winter habitat, they may roost above your doorway or in unusual open areas.\u00a0 Please allow the bat to stay; it will leave on its own in a few days\u201d added Laposa-Wilde.<\/p>\n There are lots of things B.C. residents can do to help bats; learning to coexist safely with bats is top of the list or follow proper guidelines to exclude bats from buildings.<\/p>\n Laposa-Wilde said contracting rabies from bats is extremely rare, but warned to never touch a bat. She added less than one per cent of bats carry rabies and it is only transferred by bite or scratch.<\/p>\n As part of Bat Week, residents can download Bat Week activities<\/a>, and teachers can also plan activities for students from the BC Bat Edukit Activity Guide<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BC Community Bat Program is inviting southern Vancouver Island residents to celebrate Bat Week, a global event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-219479","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\/219479","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=219479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}