In Peachland British Columbia, a local conservation group is turning the night sky into a classroom, inviting students and community members to study bats, insects, and the vital ecosystems they share.
Peachland’s Bat Education and Ecological Protection Society, better known as BEEPS, leads the Nocturnal Bat and Insect Survey Project, a hands-on learning opportunity that’s using the magic of the nighttime world to spark curiosity, research and education. To learn more about this project, we spoke with Emma Gaudreau, president of BEEPS and Lily Liang, a UBC Okanagan student majoring in ecology, evolution and conservation in biology (Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science) and who also serves as the director of BEEPS.
In our conversation, Emma and Lily walk us through how the project got started and highlights from the field. Through this collaboration, students gained invaluable hands-on experience in field data collection and species identification, conducting ten echolocation surveys that detected nine potential bat species while supporting critical monitoring of endangered populations and white-nose syndrome. The project also created rich teaching opportunities, including “bat chats” with the UBC Wildlife Society and guided interpretive trail walks, where students learned to use specialized equipment like echo meters for bat detection. By contributing data to platforms like iNaturalist and sharing findings with BC Bats and other conservation organizations, student participants are building practical research skills while contributing to broader scientific efforts that support wildlife conservation across the region. Emma and Lily also share practical advice for others hoping to build meaningful student and community collaborations, and what’s next for BEEPS as they continue to grow.
Whether you’re a student, an educator, or someone fascinated by the natural world, this episode offers a unique look at how community science can be a powerful tool for learning, connection, and conservation. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below.
This initiative was supported by UBC’s Partnership Recognition and Exploration Fund.
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Click here to read the transcript.
Can you please introduce yourself and your role in the project?
Emma: So, my name is Emma Gaudreau. I am a biologist, and I am the president of the Bat Education Ecological Protection Society. Also known as BEEPS. That’s a group that focuses on bat research and education. I did my undergraduate degree at UBCO, and I did a master’s degree in biology at the University of Ottawa. I’m excited to talk about the project today.
Lily: My name is Lily Liang. I’m a second year student, studying ecology, evolution and conservation biology at UBCO. I’m the UBC partner for the Nocturnal Bat and Insect Survey Project, and also a current director at BEEPS. I’m excited to be here today, excited to talk about the project.
Can you please tell me how the project got started? Why was it important to you and what community goals were you hoping to achieve?
Emma: The project actually got started because Lily found out about the community grant and we decided to kind of expand on some of the projects we were already working on sort of work on promoting kind of our new and improved, bat education center as well as expanding our research programs. And just trying to kind of spread more awareness about the importance of Bat ecology, to the community and, to more the Kelowna area and, UBC students, because, I think, me as a former student from UCO and Lily is a current student at UBCO, both really care about their ecology and biology programs and wanted to really help, give some opportunities to students there to get some more hands on experience with, wildlife ecology programs and projects and you know, teach people about bats and kind of get the word out there.
Lily: I found out about BEEPS through Emma and I started volunteering with BEEPS in the last semester of my first year at uni. I’m also in a bunch of other clubs at school that are related to wildlife and ecology. And I was just kind of surprised that none of them had mentioned BEEPS and the work that they do and I wanted to connect the two worlds and form a project from that. I think BEEPS is in a very unique space where people are able to come and learn about bats through talks and stuff, but also hand the public is able to come and see bats. I think it’s a super unique opportunity and I also wanted other students to experience that.
Emma: Yeah, it’s kind of a very specific thing, but the more I learn about it, and the more I get involved with it, the more I really love working with BEEPS. It’s a great group of people who do this, all as volunteers. And, like Lily said, a really unique group. One of our main things is that we basically take care of this colony of bats that lives in the attic of the Peachland schoolhouse. That was built, like, over 100 years ago. The building’s been restored; we have our ecological education center in the lower portion of the building and there’s also an art gallery and the folk school who does, artisan crafts and workshops. All three of these groups use the bottom part of the building, and then the bats are up in the attic, and we do bat counts in the summer.
I’ve been involved with BEEPS for a couple of years, and I went to a conference for the B.C. Invasive Species Council in Ottawa last winter. I met Lily there at the convention and she was talking about some cool projects she did about pollinators, which is what I did my Master’s degree on, and she was in Kelowna, so, I was like, “You should really come and see what we do with BEEPS” and now she’s one of our directors, and she’s, super awesome. It’s always good to find good people.
Can you bring us to where the project stands today? What have been some of the key milestones or activities as the project has progressed?
Lily: Sure. To talk about the stuff we’ve completed so far, over the summer we completed a total of ten bat echolocation surveys at different sites in the Okanagan and two of those also included insect surveys where Emma hung up moth sheets, they’re these bright white sheets, and we shine lights at them, and all the insects and moths are attracted to that. So, we can see in these same areas that we surveyed for bats, we can see what these bats are eating, the insect diversity and after that, we also made brochures for this project and for BEEPS in general to educate the public.
Those brochures have been designed and printed. Emma and I worked on those together and now they’ve been printed and we’re just looking at putting them up now.
Emma: Yeah, we’re planning on pinning some of the insects that we collected at those surveys, but some of our insect supplies got stuck in the mail for a long time, so, that was kind of on hold, and they’re in my freezer. So, we will start those out and do some insect pinning. So, that’ll be done soon and we also made a big flag to put out in front of the eco center so that when people walk by, they can see, “oh, there’s a bat education center” and go check it out.
Yeah. So, it really helped us a lot with some research project stuff and advertising stuff and yeah, Lily did a really good job with the brochure design and we’re excited about that.
Did this project create any opportunities for teaching, learning and research?
Emma: Yeah, absolutely. So, like a lot of different aspects of teaching, learning and research. So first, the research part, which we did the ten echolocation surveys, which identified nine species of bats, or potentially nine species. We need to kind of verify some of the data. It might be a little bit less than that, but still, really valuable data because many of the bat species in this area endangered from man-made issues and also from white nose syndrome, which is a disease that bats get that kills them when they’re hibernating.
So, that’s kind of one of the main reasons we were trying to kind of get the word out because, knowing, like, reporting bat’s behaving unusually or dead bats in the winter, can help us test for that, to see where the white nose syndrome is spreading to and knowing what species are there before white nose syndrome comes to the area is also important. So, we know what species to protect and where they are living. So, that is valuable for research. We’re going to get the echolocation data. We’re putting it on iNaturalist so that we can get other bat researchers to look at it and verify what our kind of auto I.D. gave us. We want to continue doing that in the future. So that’ll be an expansion of our research.
In terms of teaching, we were actually able to do a, a bat chat with a group of UBC students from the wildlife society that Lily got us in contact with. They worked on the the bat trail– Lily can tell you more about that part. But that was really an exciting kind of teaching opportunity. Those are kind of the main things, just learning more about what bats are in the area and using that, to help with bat research. And we’ll also be giving that data to BC Bats and other groups, so that they can add it to their database.
Lily: I’m an executive on the Wildlife Society Club at school and this fall, we were able to bring 15 or so students down to Peachland to visit the education center and, at that point, most of the bats were gone, but we were able to see a few bats, and we had students learn how to use the eco meters. The main part of that event is we also took a walk on the interpretive bat trail walk that BEEPS has set up that has several bat houses around Peachland all with educational signs and different like facts about bats. So, that was a really great event and I think a lot of the students that came out really enjoyed that and learned something new as well.
What’s been your favorite experience or outcome of the project?
Lily: Before volunteering with BEEPS, I had only seen bats maybe once or twice in my life. I think the last time I saw one was in Kelowna But during this project, it was just great to get out to all these different locations in Kelowna that I have never been to and just see the bats flying around over the water and be able to, like, tangibly measure and like record their echolocation and everything. I think that was a highlight to me, as well, just the connections I’ve made through this project. It was great to work with the Wildlife Society and also bring some other students out to echolocation surveys as well.
Emma: I have to definitely agree with Lily. Just doing the bat surveys is just so much fun. And especially when you get, like, a good group of volunteers. We had, like, a couple other, volunteers join us. One was a grad student at UBCO. And then another one was a biologist who was doing bird banding, like in the South Okanagan, who joined us. And, it was just, great to, you know, just hang out at night and watch the bats and you can see the echolocation recording on the tablet at the same time. It’s pretty neat. Or you just hear the echolocate on the tablet and you’re looking around like, “Where is it? Where is the bat?” So, it’s very fun.
It’s just good to get out at nature at night and just, you know, nerd out about, that and wildlife, just really seeing the diversity of bats that’s in the area because we have 16 species of bats in B.C. and most of those live in in the Okanagan. The Okanagan is the most diverse place for bats in Canada. So, it’s pretty cool to just see what’s out there, especially since, for BEEPS, we mostly focus on two species because there’s two species that live in the attic where we do the bat count. But just seeing what else is out there in different environments and I’m hoping to continue that.
Do certain species get along better than others?
Emma: I would say so, absolutely. Because, so in the attic, there’s, little brown myotis and uma myotis. They’re both very, like small little brown bats. One of them is also called the little brown bat but they look very similar and even though they’re two distinct species, they cohabitate in there, and it doesn’t seem like, you know, they don’t really fight or anything, so they seem to get along pretty good. But yeah. other species. I think they mostly avoid each other. Probably just because they’re living in different, different roosting spots or things like that.
But there’s a lot we don’t know about bats. Like, hich species, how they interact with each other. So definitely some species get along and others seem to avoid each other. But, you know, it’s hard to say exactly how their dynamics work between all the different species around here.
Back to your partnership. I’d love to hear more about what strengths each party brought to the project. Lily, would you like to start?
Lily: Yeah. For sure. I think Emma brought her, like, a lot of background and experience
since she’s done her undergrad and master’s in ecology and related fields. I think she brought a lot of the knowledge and research elements to this project. Since we also had to develop kind of like a procedure to how we were going about these surveys and stuff.
I think Emma has been really great as the community partner and just taking leadership and taking an initiative and then this project. I definitely would not have been able to do it alone. Also, because, Emma has a car and I do not have transportation to these sites. So yeah, definitely that.
Emma: Yeah. Somebody needs a car to get to other places. Yeah, I think Lily, took a lot of initiative just in terms of, like, finding the grant and helping with the application, like I wrote out, a sort of a rough application. And, you edited it to be, really good. I was like, “oh, wow. This is, way better than what I wrote!”
So, I was very impressed with that. And, likewise, I think, you know, just, bringing it together with some of your UBCO groups really helped a lot. The groups you’re already involved with and your graphic design skills have been also at top tier for the brochures, which, again, I kind of gave a bit of a rough outline and then she did some edits and I was like, “Oh, wow. This is like professional. this is way better!”
So, I definitely appreciate that and just her willingness to help with all the data sorting because that takes a bit of effort. Once you finish the surveys, you have to figure out what to do with them. And, yeah, we’re she’s been really, really helpful with that.
What advice do you have for others hoping to develop a successful community university partnership? Emma, can you share advice for those that are looking to engage with the University?
Emma: Yeah, absolutely. I would say, like, most importantly, find, a project that, and a partner that aligns with what you’re passionate about. Like, do something that you’re excited about doing and that you have the skills and time to do is probably my main advice because it does take, you know, a decent amount of time and effort. So, trying to figure out kind of the scope of your project, what’s doable and working with a partner that also cares about the same thing and really wants the project to succeed.
Lily: Yeah. I definitely agree that. Like, both sides being super on board and passionate about the same thing is important and I think for any university students looking to start a partnership with an organization, I would just say to reach out. There are so many organizations out there and there’s definitely one that matches your interests. And if you have the passion for it, there’s definitely a project that you can make out of it, no matter what that might be.
What’s next for your partnership?
Emma: So, I think this project was a really good, like, jumping off point for be able to kind of expand, what they’re doing in terms of, like research projects and also location wise, because I feel like, you know, in Peachland, we’re pretty well known because that’s where we have the bat colony. And, we’ve done a lot of really good work reaching out to that community. But, I think there’s a lot of people in the Central Okanagan, including university students who, don’t know about us, but, I think if they do, they would probably be interested in checking out what we’re doing, checking out our education center and joining us on a bat count.
It’s pretty fun. Just, you just come down in the summer and we sit outside and watch the bats fly out and count them. It’s a pretty unique experience. So, just you know, spreading the word about that and continuing with the surveys, to get a better idea of what bat species we have around in the Okanagan and where they are and what kind of habitats they’re preferring.
Also what kind of bugs they’re eating and yeah, learning what we can about bats so that we can teach people about it and definitely trying to get more people involved because, it’s a fun time and it’s important, ecologically,
Lily: I think even though this project might be coming to a close, like, the bats will be coming back every summer, and conservation is going to be, like, an ongoing thing. Since BEEPS is mainly like 90% volunteer run aside from like if we get funding for a few students to help. But since it’s all volunteer run, we always need more manpower for people to talk about bats, go to markets, educate people, and do research projects like this one.
So, we hope in the future we can develop these long-term relationships with UBCO and UBCO students and get them involved in that kind of volunteering work.
To round us off, if people want to get involved in about count or in general, what’s the best avenue to find opportunities?
Emma: Yeah, I would say, first of all, check out our social media and our website. So, our website is, beepspeachland.com, and we’re on social media @beepspeachland on Instagram and Facebook, and I think, yeah, we’ve just made a TikTok. So, there’s not much on it yet, but we’re putting stuff on it. So, keep an eye out for that. But yeah, we usually will post on our website and our social media when we’re doing when we start our back counts. And also, you can always just email me directly at, president@beepspeachland.com.
If you’re interested in volunteering, we have lots of different volunteers, and you don’t need to be a biologist. Like, whatever skills you have, we can, I’m sure find use for that. Like, whether that’s sewing or graphic design or social media or biology or you just want to do crafts with kids. We do a lot of different things. So, it’s always appreciated. And, yeah, that’s the best way to reach out to us and see what’s happening.
We also do, like, cool fundraisers. We did an aerial acrobatics fundraiser last fall. That was really cool. That was in Kelowna. So, if you want to learn more about bats, just check out our social media and or website.
Do you have any parting thoughts or messages you’d like to share?
Emma: Maybe I’ll just give you a bat fact. because we do bat fact Fridays on our social media every Friday. My bat fact is that: bats are more closely related to primates than they are to rodents. So, that’s something interesting. And little brown bats can live for over 30 years. Which is pretty crazy.