The BC Community Bat Program would like to welcome Christina Lake as our newest Bat Friendly Community.
“Christina Lake is a small community with a big heart and we are proud to become a Bat Friendly Community ,” says LeeAnne Wolf, Manager for the Christina Lake Stewardship Society (CLSS). “This designation highlights our work to educate residents and visitors, reduce threats to bat habitat, and encourage simple stewardship actions like protecting roosting sites and reducing or eliminating pesticide use.”
Public education is a major focus for CLSS. “As a busy tourist destination, the Christina Lake Welcome Centre interpretive gallery which now has bat information, reaches tens of thousands of people each year, helping share bat conservation messages far beyond the community,” says Wolf. Bat presentations reach a wide range of audiences including youth summer programs, local daycare and preschool groups, Girl Guides, FriYAY Play camps, the Rotary Club, and the entire student body at the local school. CLSS also reaches the public with presentations at the local pub, and events during Bat Week and Bat Appreciation Day. CLSS also has a BC Bat Edukit, custom-made and adapted for their area.
“We support the bat conservation initiatives of CLSS which include the installation of a bat friendly garden featuring native, night-blooming flowers that support nocturnal insects and pollinators,” Grace McGregor, Area C Director for Regional District of the Kootenay Boundary. Nocturnal insects like moths are part of the important food web that then provides bats with food. Some bat species like the Little Brown Myotis can eat 600 mosquitoes in an hour, but they need to eat all kinds of insects in order to get a well balanced diet!
CLSS has also installed some bat boxes within the community to provide roosting opportunities for species like the Little Brown Myotis (Endangered) and Yuma Myotis. In partnership with the Okanagan Nation Alliance, these bat boxes are being monitored annually for use. “We’re also participating in white-nose syndrome surveillance in winter and spring, by taking reports of dead bats which then get submitted for testing,” says Wolf. White-nose syndrome is a disease that has killed millions of bats in North America. It does not affect people or pets and has not been detected in BC yet.
Christina Lake is the 10th community to reach a certified status in BC. For more information, visit our Bat Friendly Communities page.