A Little Brown Myotis bat at Fundy National Park/Parks Canada, Jordi Segers

Fundy National Park is asking backcountry campers to help collect data on bats.

In 2020, the park saw a jump in bat sightings reported by staff and visitors. “Intrigued by all the activity, ultrasonic acoustic bat monitors were installed around the headquarters area of the park to listen in,” the park said in a statement. “This monitoring captured the sounds of a variety of New Brunswick bats throughout the later summer and fall of 2020.”

Now the park’s resource and conservation team wants help collecting data to find out which species of bats over-summer in Fundy and identify where their critical habitat is.

Anyone booked for backcountry camping in the New Brunswick park can sign up for the Backcountry with Bats program by calling the visitor centre at 1-506-887-6000 or by emailing [email protected] with these details:

• Dates you have booked a backcountry camping trip.
• The type of device you will use with the Echo Meter Touch 2 bat monitor — Android or iOS (Apple).
• At least one name and contact information from the camping party, including an email to receive in-depth instructions about how to set up the Wildlife Acoustics: Echo Meter Touch Bat Detector, Recorder & Analyzer on your device.

The park will loan campers a bat monitoring kit — including a data sheet — once they check in. People must then turn on the Echo Meter recording device once night falls and let it record for up to 10 minutes (the device automatically stops recording after 10 minutes). People don’t need to remain silent while the device is recording as it only picks up the high and low frequencies that animals such as bats can make.

People can even use other apps and functions of their device while the Echo Meter is recording. If possible, they are asked to do a few recording sessions at different times of the night, making note of the locations on the data collection sheet.

The bat monitoring kit is returned to the headquarters visitor centre, where an attendant will provide a USB storage device to transfer files from cellphones and tablets to computers.

The recording device that backcountry campers will be loaned at Fundy/Parks Canada

Three endangered bat species frequent the park — the Little Brown Myotis, Northern Myotis and the Tri-coloured Bat. They — along with the Big Brown Bat — are resident species and stay in the area year-round. Three species of migratory bats have also been detected using acoustic monitoring — the Silver-haired Bat, Hoary Bat and Eastern Red Bat. But because of population declines in the endangered species, it’s possible that not all these species are still present.

Bat populations across eastern North America have drastically declined over the past 15 years from a fungus known as white-nose syndrome.

“Bats are important to our well-being, the economy and the environment — they provide vital ecological services,” said Parks Canada in a statement. “All the bats native to Canada are insect-eaters and typically devour half their weight in insects during a single night of hunting for food. Their worldwide value as a natural form of pest control for agriculture and forestry is estimated in the billions of dollars.”

Parks Canada bat researchers collaborate with other bat experts to conduct research to protect and preserve them.

Outside of the park, people are encouraged to report bat sightings, check outbuildings or cottages for roosting bats before doing any construction work, and protect bat roosting habitat like older forests. Without action, experts believe that Canada could lose all of its cave-dwelling bats.