Three bat species recommended for Canada’s endangered species list

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada is recommending the federal government list three bat species as endangered. Committee members cite wind turbines as a top threat facing the hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus), the silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) and the eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis)—three migratory species that winter in the southern U.S. or Mexico.

“There’s lots of indication that all three have been precipitously declining,” Stephen Petersen, director of conservation and research at Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Zoo, told the Globe and Mail. Petersen co-chairs work on terrestrial mammals for the committee, an independent body that reports to the federal government.

“The good news is that we have tools to reduce the mortality from wind turbines,” said Christina Davy, a conservation scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Read more in the Globe and Mail. For more on efforts to reduce impacts on wildlife from renewable energy project, check out the May/June issue of The Wildlife Professional.