Students construct homes for bats

Lumber lined the tables as the overhead lights dimmed in the recesses of the Back Alley. Armed with power tools in hand, members of a campus environmental club embarked on a new sustainability effort: building bat houses.

On Sept. 28, Augie Green held a bat house building event to benefit wildlife and the campus community.

“These bat houses will help keep the mosquito and bug populations down around campus and help kind of diversify the wildlife around here,” Quinton Brink, volunteer coordinator of Augie Green, said.

Freshman Lizzie Buermann, an art and engineering major, decided to attend the event after she saw a poster for it in the Commons.

“Personally, I love bats and spooky stuff,” Buermann said. “Also, me and a friend have a very fond memory regarding bat boxes, so I saw [the poster] and thought of her.”

As children, Buermann and her friend created a comedy skit about bat boxes.

Buermann said she enjoyed meeting some upperclassmen at the event but did not like the loud saw. She hopes the bat boxes will bring more bats to campus.

With the addition of the new bat boxes around campus, senior Augie Green committee member Michael Schmidt hopes to remind students to be aware of and be kind to the animals.

“Bats are friends. Their food isn't,” Schmidt said.

Students may see an influx of bats out and about around campus in the warmer seasons. When the winter months approach and temperatures drop, bat sightings typically decrease as bats begin to migrate or hibernate. The animals will likely return to Augustana in the spring, meaning the campus community can anticipate a decrease in mosquitos at that time.

While these bat houses will introduce a home for the bats on campus, they should also keep bats out of the dorms.

“Our aim is to increase sustainability, and we feel like introducing the bats to campus is a good way to do that,” Brink said. “It also provides them an alternate home as opposed to seeking shelter in a dorm.”

Brink said a few of the boxes will be set up around Viking Oasis, the retention pond.

Water is often the first place a bat hunts for each night. Having the animals near the pond, where many insects lay eggs, could help to reduce Augustana's insect population.

These bat boxes will be far from the first in the state. Custer State Park has been home to bat houses for decades and has even held an annual bat festival for many years. The Outdoor Campus in Sioux Falls introduced the shelters more recently.

James Jennings, a First-Year Seminar instructor, has helped construct a number of the boxes at the Outdoor Campus. He said the organization often holds events for community members and families to decorate and build bat boxes for their personal use and for the Outdoor Campus.

Students can expect to see more events like this in the future, but the club hopes to see a larger turn-out.

“We're only making four [boxes] right now, but eventually we'll have the materials to make some more and position them around the dorms,” Brink said.