Photo: Sharon Laughlin

Townsend’s big-eared Bat is one of the bat species people may encounter during the annual bat count.

Little is known about the bat populations in the Okanagan and Similkameen, and a provincial non-profit group is asking for volunteers to help collect the most basic information.

The annual bat count begins next month, and the BC Community Bat Program is asking for residents to help count bats at roost sites in the region.

“No special skills are needed, you can be any age, and you can relax in a deck chair while counting," ecologist Paula Rodriguez de la Vega said.

During the count, volunteers wait outside roost sites and count bats as they swoop out at sundown. They then record numbers and basic details of weather conditions.

If volunteers don't have a bat roost site on their own properties, they will be matched at sites as close by as possible.

The BC Community Bat Program said one to two counts are done between June 1 and 21 before pups are born, and one to two more take place between July 11 and August 5 when the pups begin flying.

The program said there is some urgency to collect basic data on bat populations in B.C. with the White Nose Syndrome being detected in bats near the province.

WNS is a fungal disease first discovered in New York in 2006, and Rodriguez de la Vega said it's believed to have killed more than seven million bats since then.

“In March 2016, the disease was detected just east of Seattle, and has now spread within Washington state... We never known when it is our last year to obtain population estimates before White Nose Syndrome causes widespread declines in western North America," she said.

Further details on the program's bat counts can be found here.