Volunteers invited to join bat count

A count of Cayman’s bat population is under way and the Department of Environment is inviting volunteers to sign up to help.

On Thursday, 1 Aug., from 6:30-7:30pm, a group bat count will take place at Festival Green in Camana Bay so new participants can learn about how to help monitor the local bat population.

This will be the department’s second group bat count of the season, where those interested can find out how to join the effort to count the number of bats using specially erected bat houses.

The National Trust for the Cayman Islands has been installing bat houses since 1994, and there are currently more than 50 publicly accessible houses in Grand Cayman and Little Cayman. The structures are erected in areas where there are not many caves – the more traditional roosting and nesting places for bats.

The Department of Environment and the National Trust teamed up to establish ‘Bat Count Cayman’, which is a citizen science project that involves counting the number of bats leaving the bat houses at sunset.

“The bat count interns will take you through the process of counting the bats, finding the houses and collecting the data,” the department noted in a social media post about Thursday’s group count.

The counts take about 30 minutes.

Nine native species in Cayman

Cayman is home to nine species of bats, the only native mammals to these islands.

These are the Antillean nectar bat (Brachyphylla nana nana), the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus minor), the Brazilian free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis muscala), the buffy flower bat (Erophylla sezekorni), the Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis parvipes), the red bat (Lasiurus borealis), the velvety free-tailed or Pallas’ mastiff bat (Molossus molossus), Waterhouse’s leaf-nosed bat (Macrotus waterhousii minor) and the white-shouldered bat (Phyllops falcatus).

Each one is a protected species under the National Conservation Act.

To register and become a citizen scientist in the project, email [email protected], with the subject line ‘Bat Count Cayman’. Registered individuals can use the Epicollects5 app to enter their counts. Those who submit three bat counts on the app will get an ‘I love Cayman’ T-shirt, a chocolate bar and a bat poster, and be entered to win a prize.

For more information and to access a map with the locations of the bat houses, visit the Department of Environment website.