GO BATTY THIS SUMMER - COUNT BATS FOR CONSERVATION!

Now’s your chance to be the most creative host in your neighborhood – host a bat count this summer! Pennsylvania’s two most common bat species, the little brown bat and the big brown bat, use buildings as their summer roosts. Abandoned houses, barns, church steeples – and even currently-occupied structures – can provide a summer home to female bats and their young. Monitoring these “maternity colonies” can give biologists a good idea of how bat populations in an area are doing from year to year.   With the occurrence of White Nose Syndrome in Pennsylvania this year, monitoring these colonies is more important than ever.

PLEASE JOIN US in monitoring the health of Pennsylvania’s summer bat colonies through the Appalachian Bat Count. Colonies can be monitored by conducting a “bat count” at a summer colony in your area.  We ask that you count bats as they exit their summer roost at dusk in June, then again later in the summer to see how the colony has grown as pups begin flying.  The attached documents provide all of the information you need to get started. So please, grab a friend or two and go batty this summer for conservation.