The Nature Trust of Nova Scotia has unveiled a public adoption programme aimed at pulling one of North America’s tiniest mammals back from the brink, inviting Canadians to sponsor a tri-coloured bat in exchange for funding critical habitat protection across the province.
Weighing roughly the same as a two-dollar coin, the tri-coloured bat is a keystone predator in Maritime forests, yet its numbers were obliterated when white-nose syndrome swept through hibernation sites in the early 2010s. The fungal disease, which rouses bats repeatedly through winter and burns through their fat reserves, wiped out an estimated 95 per cent of the region’s six native species. Now, with populations showing the first fragile signs of recovery, conservationists say securing the remaining roosting grounds is the single most effective lever they can pull.
A fungus that changed the night sky
White-nose syndrome arrived in the Maritimes like a silent storm. The cold-loving fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonises the muzzles, wings and ears of hibernating bats, irritating them into costly arousals. By spring, thousands of emaciated carcasses littered the floors of caves and abandoned mines across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Lucas Greville, a bat researcher and professor at Mount Allison University, recalls the aftermath in blunt terms. “We’re talking thousands of bats just lying dead in their hibernation sites,” he said. “Since then, we’ve started to see a slow incline over the last handful of years, specifically of the little brown bats.”
That incline is tentative. Greville believes surviving individuals likely carry a degree of genetic resilience, but reproduction remains achingly slow. Female tri-coloured bats typically produce only two pups per litter, meaning any population rebound will be measured in decades, not seasons.
Lichen, old-growth and a very specific address
What makes the tri-coloured bat particularly vulnerable — and the Nature Trust’s campaign particularly targeted — is its peculiar taste in real estate. In Nova Scotia, the species roosts almost exclusively in Old Man’s Beard, a draping lichen that hangs from the branches of mature, humid forests.
“They are unique to Nova Scotia in the way that they are roosting with the Old Man’s Beard, which is a really charismatic, typical Nova Scotia forest indicator,” said Jaimee Morozoff, the Trust’s director of conservation. “It’s really critical that we’re able to protect the places where those remaining bats are still roosting and surviving.”
Protecting those places means acquiring and stewarding intact forest blocks before they are fragmented by clear-cutting or development. Money raised through the adoption initiative flows directly into land securement, stewardship agreements and long-term monitoring on Trust-held properties.
Art, community and a certificate for the mantlepiece
The campaign sits inside the Trust’s annual Gifts of Nature programme, which last year underwent a visual refresh courtesy of Nova Scotia muralist and lettering artist Kristen DePalma. Donors receive a personalised adoption certificate and exclusive artwork — a tangible link between the contributor and the creature.
“It’s a really nice way to support that collaboration, support a local artist, and also help conservation at the same time,” said Anna Weinstein, the Trust’s communications manager.
The Trust hopes the artistic angle broadens the donor base beyond the usual environmental circles, turning bat conservation into a gift option for birthdays, holidays or corporate sustainability pledges.
Eyes on the night: how the public can help
Adoption is only one piece of the puzzle. Researchers still need data on where bats are foraging, roosting and — crucially — surviving. The Atlantic Bat Hotline (1-833-434-2287) and the online portal at batconservation.ca accept sightings year-round, feeding a regional database that guides everything from wind-turbine curtailment schedules to forestry buffer zones.
Greville frames the stakes simply. “They’re a beautiful part of nature and as bat biologists, we often say the scariest part about a bat is a world without them.”
Why it Matters
The tri-coloured bat’s plight is a microcosm of the biodiversity crisis playing out in Canadian forests: a specialist species, hammered by an invasive pathogen, now clinging to existence in shrinking pockets of old-growth habitat. The Nature Trust’s adoption model translates abstract ecological loss into a concrete transaction — dollars for hectares, art for awareness — while buying time for the slow grind of natural recovery. If the programme succeeds, it could become a template for other overlooked species teetering on the edge of silence.
