Friday marked the start of International Bat Week to celebrate their role in nature.
Fourteen of B.C’s 16 bat species can be found in the Okanagan.
The Peachland Visitor Centre is home to a colony of over 2,000 Yuma Myotis bats.
Tourism services co-ordinator Susan Neill detailed that different bats have different positive effects on our environment.
“They eat between 600 and 1,000 insects in an hour. They pollinate, as well as eat insects, and their guano is excellent fertilizer. They're integral to our environment and what biologists have been saying is that in a forested area, if there are bats, the forest survives and thrives.”
Neill is also the Director of the Bat Education & Ecological Protection Society in Peachland.
She believes bats could be the answer to the reduction in use of pesticides.
“They're really nature’s powerhouse for us. They can reduce our pesticide use, use their guano for fertilizer. In fact, Saxon Winery, which is an organic winery in Summerland, has been using our guano and their production rates have gone up by 50 per cent,” said Neill.
Guano is the excrement of seabirds and bats and has an exceptionally high content of key nutrients essential for plant growth.
Not only do bats fertilize orchards but they consume insects that damage produce.
Earlier this year, a 21-year-old man died after coming into contact with an infected bat on Vancouver Island.
Neill stressed the unusual nature of an incident like that and wanted to educate the public on the essentially harmless nature of the nocturnal creatures.
“There's less than half a percent chance that a live bat will have rabies. In the entire province of BC since 1924 there have only been 2 incidences of rabies. In the entire country of Canada there have only been 27 cases since 1924,” said Neill.
In fact, she said the possibility of contracting rabies is higher through domestic dog bites than it is through contact with wildlife.