Everyone knows the classic Halloween festivities: Trick-or-Treating, carving pumpkins, costumes, and haunted houses. But if you’re looking for an unconventional activity that helps Virginia’s local ecosystems, you can make a trip to Fairy Stone State Park for their Halloween Bat Box Volunteer Workday.
Volunteers will “help prepare sites, mount bat boxes, and learn how these structures support local bat populations,” according to the Department of Conservation and Recreation website (DCR). Held during international Bat Week on October 31st from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., this open-call volunteer event requires no application process or previous volunteer status to participate in and is open to all ages.
Fun, hands-on Halloween themed volunteering is not the only draw of this event, it also assists bats in their natural habitat. Bats may be small, but they make important contributions to our ecosystem. With 16 species here in Virginia, including the Virginia big-eared bat, they’re around us more than we think. Working through the night, bats eat all kinds of insects like beetles, flies, and moths, protecting our food crops and forests from pesky small critters. This saves farmers and forest managers billions of dollars a year around the world according to Bat Week’s official website.
Bat houses, small wooden structures often attached to poles, provide a safe resting place for bats, with space to house up to 100 of the small mammals on the small end. These houses also give a warm nest to bat pups, discourage bats from nesting in our homes, and become habitat replacements caused by deforestation.
Though commonly associated with Halloween, bats don’t have to be spooky. To keep yourself and bats safe all year round maintain a respectful distance and contact your local animal control if you see a bat in distress. Bats can carry rabies and other zoonotic diseases, but when left alone they are scary good pest controllers.
Bats have long been an iconic symbol for the holiday. This season, getting involved with your environmental community may be a perfect way to celebrate these creatures, Halloween, and make an impact.
Want to Go?
The event is held at Located at:
967 Fairystone Lake Dr
Stuart, Virginia
Volunteers will gather under shelter #3 beginning at 10 A.M. on Saturday, October 31
