KELLY, N.C. (NCN News) — The North Carolina State Parks and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, two divisions of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, will be hosting this year’s N.C. Bat Working Group “Bat Blitz” to conduct a species inventory in five southeastern North Carolina counties Aug. 24-28. More than 80 trained participants from federal and state agencies and other organizations will be engaging in this effort, centered at Singletary Lake State Park in Bladen County.
For the safety of participants and captured bats, a media press pool has been planned for the event. A State Parks and an NCMNS photographer will accompany some teams for two nights to take photographs and videos of the survey. The photographs and videos will be distributed to media to use. Members of the media interested in covering the event should reach out to media@ncparks.gov to receive the digital media assets and to coordinate interviews with the project’s lead biologists.
Coming a decade after a similar event at Singletary Lake, this year’s survey aims to better understand the bat diversity and densities at sites in Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Pender, and Robeson counties. Many of the survey sites were also inventoried in 2016, which will give biologists the opportunity to compare species data. The teams will be led by scientists from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Penn State University, and consulting firms such as Biotope Forestry and Environmental, Three Oaks Engineering, and WEST, Inc.
Bats play a vital role in ecosystems as pollinators and as predators of insects. Studies have shown that bats help save the agricultural sector billions of dollars a year as natural pest control, decreasing the reliance on chemical pesticides and preventing pest damage on various crops. In 2006, a fungal disease called white-nose syndrome was discovered in North America, which has since killed millions of bats and poses a major existential threat. As many as 17 bat species can be found in North Carolina, pointing to the state’s great biodiversity.
Mist nets will be set up at numerous sites across the five counties. Bats will be weighed, measured, recorded, and photographed, before being re-released. Of the species occurring in North Carolina, 12 have been documented in the counties of interest:
- Eastern big-eared bat, Corynorhinus rafinesquii macrotis, listed as a species of special concern in North Carolina
- Big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus
- Eastern red bat, Lasiurus borealis
- Hoary bat, Lasiurus cinereus, listed as significantly rare in N.C. · Florida yellow bat, Lasiurus intermedius floridanus, listed as a species of special concern in N.C.
- Seminole bat, Lasiurus seminolus, on N.C. Natural Heritage Program’s watch list
- Silver-haired bat, Lasionycteris noctivagans
- Southeastern bat, Myotis austroriparius, listed as a species of special concern in N.C.
- Northern long-eared bat, Myotis septentrionalis, listed as endangered in North Carolina and in the U.S.
- Evening bat, Nycticeius humeralis
- Tricolored bat, Perimyotis subflavus, listed as endangered in North Carolina and has been proposed to be listed federally by the USFWS
- Mexican free-tailed bat, Tadarida brasiliensis
As part of the Bat Blitz, Bat Conservation International will also be leading a bat collaring workshop. Bat biologists from across the eastern United States will learn how to affix harmless collars to bats for longer-term tracking studies.