Hug a Mine -- Save a Bat
Northern miners set out to save bat habitat
by Brit Griffin HighGrader Magazine March/April 2000

Cross Lake is a very wild place. Only five minutes from my home, the lake is a vivid reminder of the toll Cobalt's silver boom took on the surrounding landscape. At one time the water was heavily polluted by the mine tailings of the numerous silver mining operations in the area. Although the lake has made an amazing recovery, attracting everything from blue herons to moose, there is a surreal quality to this lake and its surrounding mine ruins.
Its desolate shores are the colour of lead, the shallow waters near shore are punctured by the shorn stumps of trees, and a primordial pall clings to the edges of scrub and crumbling cement walls on the hills. This mix of post-industrialism and stubborn wildness is breath-taking.
And if you ever find yourself at Cross Lake past dusk, the haunting quality is intensified by the presence of countless bats swooping down from the cliffs and along the water. Perhaps they too like the aesthetics. But more likely they are attracted by the open mine adits (tunnels) in the surrounding cliffs.
Abandoned mine operations are ideal bat pads.
Bats favour mines for hibernating because they have cool, stable temperatures, shelter from extreme weather and protection from predators. Their winter homes have to be humid. The availability of suitable winter hibernacula is limited so caves and mines are critical to the survival of the existing populations.
Unfortunately for the bats, some of these adits at Cross Lake have been bulldozed in an attempt to prevent nosy humans from getting themselves into trouble. Some of the larger openings higher up in the cliffs have proven harder for the safety-conscious government folk to demolish. If these openings were closed off, the nightly bat parties at Cross Lake might go the way of the silver mines.

The situation at Cross Lake is part of a much larger problem. All across North America bat habitats are coming under increasing attack. It has only been recently that people have made the connection between bulldozing old mine sites and the viability of bat populations.
Shirley Ducummon is with the Texas-based Bats Conservation International. According to Ducummon, a number of factors, including loss of habitat, increasing urbanization and growing use of pesticides, are harming bat populations. It was concern over the preservation of habitat that led to Bat Conservation's mine reclamation efforts.
"We began mine reclamation back in the early '80s at a large mine in Michigan that was slated for closure. We happened to have a member there who called us up and said "Do you know that there is a mine that is about to close because of liability issues but I just went down there and counted upwards of a million bats."
Ducummon said as a result of their cooperative efforts with the community and government officials they were able to ensure safety, create a popular tourist attraction and protect the bat habitat.

Bats in the Belfry
Ontario is home to eight species of bats, five of which hibernate in the province during the winter. The other three have the sense to say adios to the great white north and head out for warmer environs. But for the others, including the Little Brown bat, late summer finds them hunting around for good spots for hibernation.
In North-eastern Ontario, the bats have found an ally in Kirkland Lake's Mike Leahy. Mike is a prospector and active member of the Northern Prospectors Association. He is also a longtime fan of the bat.
"I've always been a naturalist. Since any mine reclamation taken on by government can either destroy bat habitats or accommodate them, I decided that we needed to survey the existing abandoned mine sites to see which ones are being used by hibernating bats."
Leahy began by contacting Science North in Sudbury to help coordinate a survey. They were initially doubtful that much concrete information about bat habitats could be gathered. All that changed when Mike put out the call to fellow prospectors.
"When you think about it," says Leahy, "who are your best sources for this information? A bunch of guys who regularly go into underground workings."
Leahy says that a great deal of information has begun to come in and there have been a half dozen confirmed sites and the same number of good possibilities. Sites have been identified all over the north-east, from Elk Lake, Kirkland Lake and over in the Sault. One of the prime locations seems to be abandoned glory holes (open stopes or mine workings).
Even though many of the shafts and adits have been capped in recent years, there are still numerous open workings in the region from Temagami to Timmins.
Leahy says there's no real cost involved in accommodating the bats. Since the clean up has to happen anyway, it just means putting grates over the entrances rather than blasting them shut.
Shirley Ducummon says that her group has tested a number of different gates across North America to ensure the designs are acceptable to bats.
"We find the standard design is with a horizontal bar orientation, that way the bats can fly straight in and don't have to turn and bank.We use 5 3/4" spacing between the bars. This allows the maximum room for the bats but prevents most humans from sticking their heads through to get in."
Ducummon says mine companies in the United States have responded well to the need for preservation of bat habitat.
"We've had some outstanding success working with the mining companies. Both BHP Copper and Homestake come to mind. They are under no Federal law to protect the bats but like any good environmentalists or conservationists, they've worked with us to identify the mines that attract bat populations and then close those mines in a bat-friendly manner."
If Mike Leahy has his way, North-eastern Ontario will also become known for it's bat-friendly haunts. Something the little critters flitting their summers away down at Cross Lake will be happy to hear.

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