Georgia DNR is looking for your help to monitor summer bat roosts across the state. This project involves counting bats exiting roosts at sunset just twice during each summer. Think you can help? Keep reading!
Bats may use a variety of structures for roosting both man-made and natural. Here are some examples:
Survey requirements vary depending on the type of project and required permits. Projects within the potential range of the Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis), gray bat (Myotis grisescens) or the Northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) may require a survey. Potential range maps can be found below:
Georgia is participating in a volunteer-based, nationwide acoustic survey effort to collect long-term data about bats.
The state is home to 16 species of bats. All of them eat insects exclusively and use echolocation to navigate, communicate and find food. Echolocation calls can be recorded and used to identify bats.
The national acoustic survey protocol provides guidelines for states to follow when starting monitoring programs. Here is a basic outline of the methods for Georgia:
Don’t panic. Most situations can be handled by the homeowner. Bat Conservation International has step-by-step instructions for removing a single bat from your home. If you need to exclude a colony of bats from a structure, follow these guidelines based off of recommendations from BCI.
Want to evict bats from your house without leaving them homeless? Or maybe you just want to attract bats to your yard for some natural pest control? Put up a bat house!
Bats are picky about their bat houses, so before building a home for bats, you need to find a proper design. Bat Conservation International has done a lot of work to find out what bats like best, and they provide free plans for building your own bat house. There are a lot of things to consider before building your bat house: