Jordan Pomrenke tables with his peer Ashley Herrmann at a farmers' market two years ago, promoting their bat houses.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
jappel@medicinehatnews.com@MHNJeremyAppel
A fourth-year Medicine Hat College student is building shelters to protect the local brown bat population, for which he’s received an international award.
Jordan Pomrenke, who studies business, says he began the project a few years ago after learning about white-nose syndrome, which he describes as a “death sentence” for the bats.
Ninety per cent of brown bats who contract this disease die, he added.
“The big problem with this is these bats eat a lot of insects for farmers, so if these bats go extinct, farmers would need to triple the amount of pesticides that they use and that could total upwards of $43 billion a year,” said Pomrenke.
This is a “problem that not really anyone sees or is personally attached to that has a significant impact on industry.”
Pomrenke contacted a bat expert, who told him that the most effective way to combat this scourge is to build small wooden bat houses.
“Typically, what happens is these bats will hibernate in caves of 20,000, and if one of these bats has the disease it will spread through the entire cave and kill a significant portion of them,” he said.
These bat houses hold about 20 bats, so if one of them contracts white-nose disease, it will spread to just 19 other bats.
“It’s kind of divide and conquer in a sense,” Pomrenke said, adding that they’ve sold or donated about 110 of them.
In autumn, Pomrenke and his colleagues received an award from the International Partnership Network in Houston for their work with Enactus, an international entrepreneurial non-profit.
He says the disease is a problem mostly confined to Eastern Canada, but it’s gradually moving westward, so it’s important to remain vigilant.
“Anything that we do or sell in Alberta is preventive,” said Pomrenke.
He said he’s been working this year with an East Coast contact to find a manufacturer to produce the boxes there.
Pomrenke, who grew up on a small farm in Assiniboia, Sask., says he was drawn to the agricultural angle of the project.
“It’s something you don’t really consider, that bats are doing a large percentage of the insect population control and the idea that if those go extinct, it could impact farmers’ bottom line when it’s already somewhat fragile,” he said.
Those interested in purchasing a bat house for $35 can contact enactusmhc@gmail.com.
