Read Cori Lausen's Nahanni bat report, and view the
CPAWS-NWT Bat Poster celebrating the discovery of new species in the Nahanni Survey.

This little brown bat is the most common species of bat found in the north. Mountain Equipment Co-op assisted Parks Canada in funding Cori's bat survey in the Nahanni River National Park Reserve in 2006. CPAWS-NWT was a funding liaison and provided tremendous support, including the production a community poster educating locals about the new species of bats found in NWT during this survey. The poster was supported by a number of other groups including Y2Y Conservation Initiative and Bat Conservation International.

Michael and Cori at Prairie Creek, Nahanni National Park. Inspired by their recreational white-water canoe trip through the park in 2004, they proposed the first formal bat survey for the NWT. In 2006 using white-water raft, Cori surveyed bats along the South Nahanni River, more than tripling the number of bat species known for the Park, and extending the northern range of 3 species. As a husband and wife team, Cori and Michael carry out ecological wildlife research under their company, Birchdale Ecological, Inc.

This bat survey was made possible by Mountain Equipment Co-Op
and Parks Canada.

Haida Gwaii

It is critical to keep track of the tides when doing bat work on Haida Gwaii--the boat had to be anchored far enough from the shore to avoid being beached. Moving gear and people back and forth by dingy was often challenging due to rough surf.

An inflatable dinghy was used to row gear between the Parks Canada jet-boat and shore. Getting a dinghy full of 10 ft long mistnet poles through the rough shoreline surf at night often resulted in a refreshing ocean-water bath! On the 'bright side', the bioillumination paddle was a spectacular reward!

On Haida Gwaii, bats can be seen flying along the beach. Netting for bats along the ocean beaches of Haida Gwaii was a magnificent experience. On Hotspring Island, pictured here, female bats give birth to young in rock cracks along the beach where natural hot springs keep the rocks warm. Cori and Parks Canada biologist Doug Burles netted this beach to capture Keen's myotis[see photo below], a rare species of bat.

Here, Cori and Doug set a net near one of the main pools on Hotspring Island, at the southernmost tip of Haida Gwaii.

In northern Canada, bats live on the edge. Here the nights are short and the insect-eating season is over in a blink! Studying bats in these harsh environments is challenging and exciting. This sunrise near Haynes Junction, Yukon occurred at 3:00 am.

Around the solstice, bats in northern Canada can be seen flying during the mid-night sun; this constant state of twilight adds an interesting dimension of challenge to mistnetting, as bats easily detect mistnets with their eyes. Northern bat surveys are important for establishing baseline biodiversity data -- bat distributions are likely to shift quickly as climate change proceeds. What limits these species at the north end of their range is not yet understood.

Cori's Yukon bat work in 2007 was funded in part by the Yukon Government, Y2Y Conservation Initiative, Kluane National Park, and Northern Research Institute [Yukon College]. This research was documented as part of a special on the Yukon by Discovery Channel Daily Planet in July 2007. Watch the video clip . [tip: it is slow to start, and you may need to download their video-viewing software after they show you an advertisement! The video is called "Batty Investigation" -- press the play button if it doesn't start automatically.]

Near Kluane National Park, Yukon, Cori works with other Yukon bat biologists to survey bats. Access is extremely limited near the park, forcing surveys to be conducted in low-lying areas with high grizzly bear density; precautions such as making noise throughout the night and carrying bear spray are always taken. Mosquitoes [white objects seen in foreground of photo] add another dimension of challenge to northern bat surveys!

The 2007 Yukon bat survey was a baseline survey across most of southern Yukon, where roads provided access. Cori returned to the Yukon in 2008, this time focusing on more remote locations. One site that was surveyed for small mammals, including bats, was Coal River Springs Territorial Park, a small remote protected area in SE Yukon. Mist-netting around the cold water tufa mound [photo on left] resulted in the capture of two species of bats: little brown myotis and northern myotis.

One might expect bats in the north to have special adaptations to life in the Midnight Sun. After all, they are nocturnal, trying to make a living during the summer when insects are at their peak intensity, but so is the sun! Jen Talerico and Lea Randall of the University of Calgary completed MSc research projects on this very question. Cori, together with Jen, Lea and Yukon bat biologist Tom Jung, compared little brown bats from the Yukon to those found further south in B.C. where the sun does not remain up all night, and found some interesting and significant differences in their morphology and echolocation calls. These differences align well with the behavioural differences that were noted by Jen and Lea during their Masters research. We are currently working on a publication on the plasticity of echolocation and unique morphology of little brown bats in the north.

Skagit Valley

There are 4 species of long-eared myotis bats in B.C. that are all morphologically similar [Northern Long-eared, Western Long-eared, Keen's myotis, and Fringed Bat]. Only one of these species [Northern Long-eared] is clearly distinct genetically. What distinguishes the other 3 species is not clear. Laura Friis, small mammal specialist for Ministry of Environment B.C., initiated a multi-year long-eared bat project to understand the differentiation between these species. B.C. biologists Cori Lausen, Dave Nagorsen, and Doug Burles are conducting this research.

At left, Dave Nagorsen [Mammalia Consulting, B.C.] in the Skagit Valley, B.C. Dave and Cori captured bats here as part of the Ministry of Environment's multiyear long-eared bat project. While heavy rain usually causes bats to head for home, they will continue to fly in light to moderate rain; in fact rain can improve mistnet capture success as bats head for tree cover to forage. Bat researchers head for tarp cover to measure and identify the bats.

The photo at right shows Dave Nagorsen [Mammalia Consulting, B.C.] zip-lining a bat for acoustic sampling. Zip-lining involves tethering a bat to a horizontally strung fishing line using a light bungee cord. As the bat flies back and forth on the "clothes line" created between the two small green poles, we record its echolocation calls.

Part of understanding the biology and distribution of a bat species involves being able to recognize the pattern of their echolocation call. Ultrasound calls produced by bats vary from individual to individual, from species to species, and between different types of geography. Using a light elastic cord tied loosely around the back of the head of the bat [they really don't have a neck!], a bat can be kept near a recording unit while it flies to ensure its acoustic signature is captured.

Winter Bat Work

Netting bats in Canada in winter? Yep! In 2003, Cori discovered that bats are active in winter in the Alberta prairies. Using passive acoustic montoring [Anabat], she found bats were flying in the river valleys at night---at temperatures as low as -8C, even when day temperatures didn't get above freezing!

Cori and Michael decided to try catching them mid-winter using mistnets....and it worked! They put radio-transmitters on the bats and tracked them to find their hibernacula. They then discovered that the bats weren't over-wintering in caves, as is typically thought, but were crawling into deep cracks in the river valley walls.

You can hear Cori describe this project on the CBC Radio program Quirks and Quarks, in an interview with Bob MacDonald, and read a synopsis in Bat Conservation Times. This work has been published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

Finding bat roosts can be a real challenge.....often requiring ropes and climbing skills. Here Cori rapels during the winter to find the hibernaculum of a bat that she fitted with a transmitter the night before.

Once bats are outfitted with transmitters, radio-telemetry can be used to locate them as they fly or while roosting. In this way, bat roosts are discovered....but not easily!

Using these techniques, Cori discovered that bats hibernate in deep rock crevices in the Alberta prairies.

Why do bats fly in the Winter?
This was an obvious question coming out of Cori's PhD research. To help answer this question, a heated water tank has been installed at Dinosaur Provincial Park. Based on preliminary findings, bats may be coming out for a drink of water. If you'd like to read more about this ongoing research, please visit the Dinosaur Provincial Park website.

B.C. Bats Fly in the Winter, too!
Now living in B.C., Cori has expanded her winter research to the mountains. Several study sites across the west Kootenay region were sources of data for Cori during 2009-2010.

Winter bat work is full of unique challenges: icy logging roads required chains; a child's plastic sled served as a great way of moving heavy equipment around; one of the winter study sites, Fort Shepherd, is a conservancy area near Trail, B.C. and is closed to motorized vehicles during the winter. As such, Cori canoed across the Columbia River to download data from her passively recording bat detector [photo below]. This is a relatively warm, dry area and bats were detected flying here most of the 2009-2010 winter.

The 2009-2010 winter field work was unplanned, but the warm weather was an irresistible opportunity to learn much needed information about winter bat ecology. This work wouldn't have been possible without the generous volunteer assistance provided by Cori's husband Michael [pulling the sled in photo at right], and colleague Thomas Hill of Nelson, B.C. [photo far left].

Fort McMurray, Alberta

Conducting bat surveys in most areas of northeastern Alberta is logistically challenging, requiring all equipment to be flown into survey sites by helicopter. Luckily, cut-lines facilitate some on-ground movement using Argos [photo on right] so that ideal mist-netting sites can be accessed.

Montana/North Dakota

From 2005 - 2009, Cori conducted many bat surveys for the US Forest Service [Region 1]: Flathead, Helena, Lewis and Clark, Beaverhead-Deerlodge, and Gallatin National Forests in Montana, and Little Missouri National Grasslands in North Dakota. In 2009, Cori also conducted an extensive survey for the Confederated Kootenai and Salish Tribes on the Flathead Reservation in Montana.

A few noteworthy findings from these surveys included the first record of Townsend's Big-eared Bat in North Dakota, confirmation of Yuma Myotis in the state of Montana, and a surprisingly large capture ratio of Fringed Myotis in the Flathead Reservation of Montana.

Montana and North Dakota tout spectacular scenery and fantastic bat diversity. Over the years there were many challenges, including setting triple high nets at dam outflows [photo at left shows Janene Lichtenberg, biologist with CKST, MT], and netting over deep dugouts [photo above right, Cori in North Dakota June 2009].

Bat Portraits

As part of her research projects, Cori has captured >6000 bats and >30 species. She has handled more than enough of these little brown bats, the most widespread species in North America. As part of her PhD Research, Cori discovered that 2 supposed subspecies of little brown bats, recently proposed to be separate species based on mitochondrial DNA, are actually just one interbreeding group. She has therefore proposed that one of the little brown subspecies designations be dropped and the others thoroughly reviewed. This research is published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

Most species of bats typically have only one young per year, called a pup, shown at left. In her MSc. research, Cori found that bats roosting in buildings lead a better life than those roosting in natural rock crevices. One benefit to building-roosting bats is that they typically give birth earlier, which provides extra growing time for the pup before hibernation.

Cori's MSc and PhD work focused on these two species of bats: western small-footed [below, left], and big brown bat [below, right]. In her MSc work Cori described summer roosts of big brown bats in relation to their physiology [torpor-daily cooling of their bodies to save energy]. In her PhD work she described sumer roosts of western small-footed bats, and winter roosts of big brown bats. The main focus of Cori's PhD research, however, was the landscape genetics of western small-footed bats, big brown bats, and little brown bats. Cori determined that river topography influences breeding and dispersal of these species to varying degrees.

Pictured at right is a Townsends' big-eared bat that Cori captured in north-central Montana. Her work there extended the range of this species in Montana and increased the number of known maternity colonies in the state at the time from 1 to 3.

In the photo at left, Cori holds a western long-eared bat that she captured in the Northwest Territories as part of 2006 survey of Nahanni National Park. The capture of this species was a huge success, as this was the most northern record of this North American species.

The Hoary Bat, pictured at right, is the largest species of bat in Canada. It is a migratory species, meaning that it moves south for the winter rather than hibernating in Canada like most other species. Other migratory species of bats include Red Bats and Silver-haired Bats. Migratory bats are the most common species showing up dead under wind turbines; most fatalities occur during the fall migration.

Cori worked with Dr. Brock Fenton on two projects, one in Belize and another in South Africa. This Wahlberg's epauleted bat, left, is just one of the amazing bat species that were captured in South Africa. There are 2 main types of bats in the world, Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera. While all bats in North America are Microchiropterans, this fruit bat is a Megachiropteran. Unlike Microchiropterans, Megachiropterans are 'old world' bats only, and do not produce ultrasound [do not echolocate]. They navigate the night skies using their eyes only, which makes them easier to catch in mist-nets.