Bat monitoring rig at JK Black Oak.
Photo by Bruce Kimmel
Bats are an important part of a healthy ecosystem. There are over 1,400 bat species in the world and they can eat their body weight in insects every night. This insect diet helps all types of farmers protect crops from pests. Since they are our mammalian cousins, they also can be a good indicator species (i.e. a “canary in a coal mine”) for protecting our own health and well-being. Our knowledge about bats is growing but still fragmentary. In order to improve our knowledge about bats in Loudoun County, the Banshee Reeks chapter of Virginia Master Naturalists has launched a decade-long project to identify bats that visit and live in the area from recordings of their bat echolocation calls. Thirteen recording stations have been deployed around the county including one in the JK Black Oak Wildlife Sanctuary. Recordings will be made when bats are active in the area from April through October. This project is also an extension of the North American Bat Monitoring project being run by USGS. Over the next decade we will be able to use project data to look for trends in bat activity and health, thus informing conservation efforts locally and nationally.