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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 10h

Our bat probiotic project is expanding beyond BC and WA and into Alberta and the territories! Bats benefit! We’re studying how long it persists and whether it could be used in backyard bat houses.🦇 Help fund this work: donate or run a fundraiser! wcscanada.donorsupport.co/page/FUNKNPK...

Image of a Little Brown Myotis covered with fungal growth Pd that causes white-nose syndrome in hibernating bats. Overwinter mortality rates for this species are over 90%. Photo: Greg Horne from Feb 2026.

Image of a bat wing stretched out in the gloved hands of a bat researcher. UV light is shining on the wing surface where speckles of orange fluoresce under the UV light. This is a sign of fungal growth (Pd) that causes white-nose syndrome. Bats emerging from hibernation will show this sign if they have been infected by Pd. Photo: Jason Headley

Image of the team at work processing bats in early May - documenting signs of white-nose syndrome. One researcher holds a bat while another swabs the wing with a sterile swab that will be sent away for testing. Researchers wear gloves (and change them between bats) to reduce the risk of transmission of the fungus between bats. Masks are worn to protect the bats from researchers potentially giving bats any diseases. This work involves a lot of decontamination, making processing of each bat highly involved before it is eventually released back into the night. We are grateful for a huge number of volunteers who have joined us to help with this project. Photo: Jason Headley

Our Alberta team sprays hydrated probiotic bacteria into bat houses after bats have left to hunt for the evening. The probiotic formula dries onto roosting surfaces. Returning bats crawl over the roost surfaces and pick up the beneficial bacteria on their wings which will assist in their survival in the following winter when they encounter Pd that causes white-nose syndrome. Photo: Jason Headley

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Gardening for bats? Think bug farming! 🦇🌱 Native plants feed caterpillars. Flowers feed moths. Together, they help grow a bat buffet! Sharing a few tips from last night’s Calgary Horticulture Club talk. Find plant lists in our Alberta Program Guide: albertabats.ca/resources

Gardening for Bats?
A little brown myotis rests head-down on tree bark beside gardening tips: reduce outdoor lighting; garden for bugs; eliminate pesticides; build a water feature; keep domestic cats inside at night; pull burdock; and consider suitable bat houses. Photo credited to Jennifer Chik.

Moon Meadows and Bat Gardens
A full moon against a dark blue night sky accompanies the text: “Moon Meadows: Fragrant flowers feed moths; moths pollinate flowers. Bat Gardens: Bug farming!”

Plant a Bat Garden!
Gardening tips over a photograph of a lake at dusk: fragrant plants; white or pale flowers; late afternoon or evening blooms; tubular flowers; and native plants, shrubs and trees that feed caterpillars. Photos on the right show a yellow flower of a native evening primrose, pink wild roses and golden leaves beside a pale aspen tree trunk.

Plant Lists and Pesticides
The cover of “Building Bat-Friendly Communities: Alberta Program Guide” features a bat hanging head-down. Beside it, text reads: “Find plant lists in our Alberta Program Guide. Be sure plants you buy are not treated with neonicotinoids.” Resource address: albertabats.ca/resources.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

An amazing opportunity in British Columbia with a great foundation that does some really fantastic work.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"ribbeting" LOL! I see what you did there...but seriously - frogs may not echolocate - but some of them do use ultrasound for communication! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18029296/

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I'm loving the bats but now I'm thinking I need recipes for some of these things... LOL!

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Or at the very least maybe protecting them (and their habitats)! 🦇🌳🪲

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Bat Fact! 🦇 Big Brown Bats love beetles, including agricultural pests. One study estimated that a colony of 150 could eat about 600,000 cucumber beetles in a season. That’s a lot of free pest control! Whitaker 1995

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

with that big bare muzzle - it looks like a Big Brown Bat to me! I don't know if Evening Bats range over to Minnesota - I don't think so? My money is on Eptesicus fuscus. BBB.

Close up portrait of a Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) by Sebastian A. Echeverrri. Bat has dark golden brown fur, bright eyes and a muzzle that is puffy and bare (very typical for EPFU).

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

But can we help bats survive? 🦇 Our topical probiotic is showing promising results as a new tool against white-nose syndrome. Learn more: wcscanada.org/bats

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

What happens when a bat gets white-nose syndrome? 🦇 A cold-loving fungus sets off a deadly chain reaction during hibernation. Here's what happens. ↓

A hibernating brown bat clings to a cave wall with visible white fungal growth on its muzzle, ears and wing. Text reads: “What is white-nose syndrome? A cold-loving fungus. Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd) grows on hibernating bats during winter.” Photo: Greg Horne.

Close-up of a small bat with white fungal growth around its muzzle, held gently in blue-gloved hands. Its mouth is open and wings are partly extended. Text reads: “What is white-nose syndrome? Bats wake up too often. The fungus causes bats to wake repeatedly during hibernation.” Photo: Steve Taylor/USFW.

A bat wing held open by blue-gloved hands and photographed under ultraviolet light, revealing numerous orange-yellow areas of tissue affected by white-nose syndrome. Text reads: “What is white-nose syndrome? Winter energy runs out. Each time a bat wakes, it burns fat needed to survive winter.” Photo: Jason Headley.

Numerous dead bats lie scattered on snow outside a winter hibernation site. Text reads: “What is white-nose syndrome? Many bats don’t survive. Some bats starve or leave hibernation too early, when insects are still unavailable.” Photo: Cynthia Werier.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Funny story - I had been using this photo during outreach (especially to kids) because they are so adorable. But I could never find the attribution for the image. I was at a bat conference and @danriskin.bsky.social was presenting (a fellow bat bio & friend) and it was HIS photo! LOL! Proper credit!

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

🦇Fun fact: these little guys specialize on avian prey - yeah - they feed on birds. So, don't worry about'em you buncha two-legged mammals....

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

What? Bluesky wants pictures of vampires? YOU CAN'T STOP US! WE LOVE VAMPIRES! (Vampire bats that is)...here are two baby White-winged Vampires. 🦇🦇 #vampires #BatsNeedFriends (especially vampire bats)

Close-up photo of two baby white-winged vampire bats lying side by side on a white towel. The young bats have grey-brown fur, large dark eyes, prominent rounded ears and wrinkled noses. One faces the camera while the other rests partly behind it. Photo: Dan Riskin.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Happy Baturday! 🦇 Silver-haired Bats are widespread across Alberta, but we still know surprisingly little about where they spend the winter. Do they stay in BC? Head to Montana? Somewhere else entirely? Some bat mysteries are still waiting to be solved. #Baturday

Close-up photo of a Silver-haired Bat roosting against reddish tree bark. The bat has dark fur heavily frosted with silver and large, slightly rounded, dark ears. A label reads “COSEWIC endangered.” Below, text identifies the species as Silver-haired Bat, Lasionycteris noctivagans, and reads: “Widespread, especially near riparian habitats. Where do they hibernate? BC? Montana?” WCS Canada Western Bat Program and Alberta Community Bat Program logos appear at the bottom. Photo: Charles Francis.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Be a friend to bats! 🦇 Little Brown Myotis are endangered in Canada and are the bats Albertans are most likely to find in buildings and bat houses. You can be bat-friendly, even when a colony needs managing. 👉 albertabats.ca #FriendsForBats #BatMonth

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

October belongs to the bats. 🦇🍂 They migrate, hibernate, navigate with sound and live surprisingly long lives. And there's still so much we don't know about them. It's Bat Month! All October we'll be sharing the science, stories and mysteries of bats. Come hang out with us. 🦇

A Little Brown Myotis rests on grey tree bark with a dark background. Text reads October is Bat Month! Come Hang With Us! Logos of both WCS Western Bat Program and the Alberta Community Bat Program. PHoto by Jason Headley.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

TODAY! In one hour! Lisa Wilkinson with AEP is giving a talk on the probiotic project we have been leading in Alberta. The Alberta Chapter of the Wildlife Society is hosting the online webinar - you can register for free here www.actws.ca/webinars/

actws.ca

Webinars | ACTWS | Alberta Chapter of The Wildlife Society

Welcome to Alberta’s Wildlife Spotlight Webinar Series, where we explore key conservation and species management efforts across the province. Each webinar focuses on a different species…

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

🦇Rare in Alberta, Eastern Red Bats are long-distance migrants that roost alone in tree foliage, camouflaged like dead leaves or pine cones. Females may raise up to four pups (which is wild!). And borealis means “northern”... so is “Eastern” really the best name? #HappyBaturday #NorthernRedBat

Two photographs of a Red Bat. At top, a reddish-brown bat hangs upside down among green leaves, camouflaged against the foliage. Below, a golden-red bat flies against a black background with its wings extended. Text reads: “Red Bat, Lasiurus borealis. Rare in Alberta. Long-distance migrator.” An orange label says “COSEWIC endangered.” WCS Canada Western Bat Program and Alberta Community Bat Program logos appear at the bottom.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

😀Do you work with bats? Are you a bat biologist, educator, or rehabber? The list is specifically for people who want to find and follow bat workers - either colleagues or just for fun. We love bat enthusiasts though! Follow along! 🦇

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Bat People - Let me know if you aren't in either the first or second starter pack! I'll add you! 🦇

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Looking for the 🦇people on BlueSky? We have a starter pack for that! (Two actually)! #JustCantGetEnough go.bsky.app/2t1aJW2

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Hah! Not spoiling anything - I'm still only just getting introduced to it!

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Who says this bridge isn't leading straight to the 46th room? 🕵️‍♂️ Glad it tickled those uncanny puzzle nerves! (full disclosure - I had to look up Blue Prince! LOL! It sounds fun!)

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We see lots of art under bridges—but not always this lovely! 🎨 A detector beneath this one records ultrasonic bat calls (not conversations). Artist @algueux spotted our sign and left us a bat. 🦇 If you find one of our monitoring stations, please leave it in place. 📷 Cory Olson

Under a concrete bridge, blue support pillars rise from a shallow river. Two black-and-white murals—one of a riverside landscape and one of a flowering thistle—decorate the lower wall. Above them, a painted bat silhouette appears over the artist’s name, “Algue 26.” A small bat-monitoring information sign is attached to the centre pillar.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Re-wild a little. Help bats a lot. 🦇🌙🌿 Plant a Moon Meadow for moths or a Bat Garden with native host plants for insects bats eat. Add shrubs & trees, skip pesticides and keep nights dark. Small changes can make better habitat. albertabats.ca/resources

Graphic titled “Re-WILD FOR BATS!” featuring a close-up photo of a Big Brown Bat clinging to tree bark. Text encourages people to garden with native plants, shrubs and trees, reduce pesticide use, and minimize lighting at night. It directs readers to the Bat-friendly Communities Guidebook at albertabats.ca/resources. Alberta Community Bat Program and WCS Canada logos appear at the bottom. Photo credit: Jason Headley.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

We aren't the only team at @wcscanada.org that uses bioacoustics! Much like our bat detectors record "bat sounds" our arctic team is busy recording ocean sounds with recorders installed on the seafloor. Great episode featuring our colleague Bill Halliday. #ListeningForWildlife (and boats)

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

🦇International Bat Night is August 29–30! Alberta’s bats are on the move: long-distance migrants may travel 2,000 km or more, while some resident bats move over 500 km to winter sites within the province. Watch at sunset—and imagine their journeys across our night skies! #BatsNeedFriends

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

🦇Cool, humid and stable hibernacula help bats conserve energy through winter—but those same conditions allow Pd, the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, to grow. That overlap is what makes the disease so damaging to hibernating bats. Our Western Bat Team is fighting back with topical probiotics.

Infographic titled “White-nose Syndrome, caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd).” A culture dish and a photograph of a bat with visible white fungal growth accompany a table comparing conditions favourable to Pd with those needed by hibernating bats. Pd grows from about 0–20°C, optimally at 12.5–15.8°C, and favours 95–100% relative humidity, darkness, moisture, stable conditions and little air movement. Hibernating bats generally select cool, stable sites of 2–10°C with 90–100% relative humidity, darkness, quiet and little airflow. Pd thrives in winter, colonizing bat skin and causing repeated arousals while bats have lowered body temperatures and suppressed immune systems. Key takeaway: the conditions that support successful bat hibernation closely overlap with those that allow Pd to grow.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Bat species produce calls with characteristic frequencies and shapes—but identifying a species from sound alone isn’t always straightforward. Combined with other evidence, recordings can reveal which bats are present, when they are active and how they use a habitat. 2/2

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Tools of a Bat Biologist: Bat Detectors 🦇 Bats navigate and hunt using ultrasonic calls—sounds too high for us to hear. Bat detectors bring those calls into our hearing range and allow biologists to record and examine them. What can we learn by listening to bats? A thread… 1/2

Dimly lit photo of a masked bat biologist holding a bat bag in one hand and a detector in the other. Labels read "Bat in bag" pointing at bag (shown with lines indicating an echolocating bat inside vocalizing) and the labels Yuma? Little Brown? around the detector. Text reads Hand-held detectors- Used by our Western Bat Team along with morphological measurements to distinguish Little Brown Myotis from Yuma Myotis Photo by Jordi Segers

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Oh that's lovely! The bat "music" wasn't quite as melodic! 😉

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

A busy weekend at Dinosaur Provincial Park! We participated in their festival celebrating dark skies, stars, and nocturnal wildlife this weekend. Hosted the bat booth, gave a bat talk and led a bat walk on Saturday evening to 64 participants! A beautiful summer weekend in Alberta!🦇

A Western Small-footed Myotis peers out from a rock roost. This is a small 5gram bat with yellow fur and black ears, face and wings. Photo by Jason Headley.

A photo of the Dinosaur Provincial Park pavilion in front of the visitor centre. Blue sky and badlands in the background. Photo: SHolroyd

Photo of a box on a sandy area with the words Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta stamped on it (this is used by interpreters who lead groups on fossil exploration excursions in the protected area of the park). The background is a spectacular vista of the Alberta badlands and blue sky. Photo: SHolroyd

A photo of a prickly-pear cactus at ground level against a blue sky. Sharp eyes might find a remnant fossil in the stones in the foreground of the photo (you can go many steps without finding something in this area!) Photo: SHolroyd

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Great work by a group of dedicated bat biologists teaming up from Canada and Australia!

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The "hot roost" might be ideal during cool spring weather but too hot in July. Give bats the option to move to a shaded roost so they don't overheat.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

This supports our WCS Canada Best Management Practices for bat houses - which advise to install at least 3 or more bat houses to create a "roost area" that provides shelters with different microclimates.

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Alberta Community Bat Program/Western Bat Program 🦇 @albertabats.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

🦇New research co-authored by WCS Canada’s Cori Lausen shows how extreme heat threatens Yuma Myotis. Females tolerated up to 44°C by letting their bodies heat up to conserve water—but dangerously hot artificial roosts can still cause lethal dehydration. doi.org/10.1093/jmam...

Photo of Yuma Myotis held on a blue gloved hand by Kyle Nelson.

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