Northwest Territories and Wood Buffalo National Park

A cluster of hibernating little brown myotis
A cluster of hibernating little brown myotis

In Sept. 2010, Cori, along with Parks Canada, NWT government, and AESRD biologists, did an internal survey of several sinkhole caves known or suspected to house hibernating bats. Indeed, a cave in Wood Buffalo National Park had hibernating bats (3 species), and this hibernaculum had not changed tremendously since it was described more than 20 years ago. A newly discovered hibernaculum for bats was found in NWT, the first for the territory. This is now the largest bat hibernaculum known in Western Canada, with approximately 3000 bats. While all bats observed in the cave were little brown myotis, two other species were captured in mistnets entering into the hibernaculum during a snow storm and it is thus suspected more than one species overwinters here. A cluster of hibernating little brown myotis can be seen in the picture above.