CONGRATULATIONS to Ms. Josée Simard from the Chaudière Appalaches region, who won the dormitory by completing the Citizen Science Survey launched during Bat Week 2020. Ms. Simard is a grade 2 and 3 teacher in a Quebec City school and she completed the survey with her students. Congratulations to Ms. Simard for raising your students' awareness about bats!
Thank you all for your participation, we collected 401 responses to the survey in French and 5 in English, and 339 of you gave their information for the draw!
For those of you who would still be interested in setting up a dormitory in your home, a construction plan is available on the batwatch.ca website.
The team at Chauve-souris aux abris
Bat Week, which takes place from October 24 to October 31, 2020, is an international celebration designed to raise awareness on issues related to bat conservation. Following the success of the 2019 edition, the Neighborhood Bat Watch Québec team wishes to have a bat house drawn for a second consecutive year. The draw will be made among the participants of a survey written by l’Équipe de rétablissement des chauves-souris du Québec interested by the cohabitation with bats and on citizen science.
- The contest is open to residents of Quebec who participate in the survey before October 31 at 11:59 pm.
- The draw will take place the following week.
Link to the survey : https://fr.surveymonkey.com/r/LHY29HH
Bat houses provide alternative roosts for bats from spring until early fall. Setting up bat houses can promote the presence of these insectivorous mammals in surrounding ecosystems, and possibly reduce the abundance of harmful insects!
To learn more about bats, to find blueprints for making your own dormitory and to increase your chances of hosting a colony in a bat house, head to Useful information / Setting up a bat house and Bat house models.
For more about the white-nose syndrome in Manitoba:
(http://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?item=43983)
(http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/fatal-disease-testi...)
and Newfoundland:
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/deadly-white-nose-sy...)
(http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/2018/ffa/0511n03.aspx)
“Bat watchers wanted as scientists track spread of deadly fungus”, Ottawa Citizen; Ottawa, ON (July 12, 2015)
“Ontarians asked to report on bat colonies”, London Free Press; London, ON (June 22, 2015)
The University of Winnipeg Bat Lab launches a campaign to help fund innovative conservation research (https://foundation.uwinnipeg.ca/projects/help-save-our-bats/).
Learn more in the following media links:
- Interview with Dr. Craig Willis on 680 CJOB Radio, Winnipeg, MB (October 5, 2015)
- “Bat fans to the rescue”, Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, MB (Sept 19, 2015)
- “White-Nose Syndrome: the fight to save bats heats up”, CBC – Thunder Bay, ON, Web feature (Aug 20, 2015)
- TV sketch on CTV News Winnipeg (Oct. 6, 2015)