Background/Question/Methods Bats provide important environmental and economic services, but face major threats from White-nose Syndrome and loss and degradation of key roosting and foraging habitat. Yet monitoring bats is inherently difficult due to their volant, nocturnal nature. In addition, obtaining funding to provide long term, large scale surveys for nongame species is an ongoing challenge. Therefore, the creation of a citizen science program was needed to efficiently and cost effectively monitor colonial roosting bat populations across South Carolina. Following the lead of Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Appalachian Bat Count program, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources created the “SC Bat Watch!” program to provide citizen scientists opportunities to report standardized summer bat count emergence data from bat boxes, building, bridges, and other bat roosts across the state. This citizen science partnership was initiated not only to provide large scale, low cost bat data collection, but also to generate public interest and a better understanding of bat species, habitat requirements, and threats to bats in South Carolina. Results/Conclusions The roll out phase of this project produced 1) a Survey123 SCDNR Bat Watch app for participants to submit data while in the field; 2) a total of 5 Bat Watch training sessions from 2018 to 2020 attended by over 200 people; 3) Bat Watch window decals for participants to serve as a thank you and promote the project; and 4) a SCDNR Bat Watch webpage containing a full description of the project, links to datasheets, instruction sheets, and bat ID guides; instructions on how to use the SCDNR Bat Watch app; information about upcoming Bat Watch trainings; and an embedded video of a bat emergence to for practicing purposes. We are still in the early phases of data collection for this project. However, data has been submitted from 4 counties in the Upstate and 1 county on the Coastal Plain, with bat boxes making up 99% of bat roosts surveyed, and bat counts ranging from 1 to over 1000 individuals. When known, the main species recorded were Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) and big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). We will continue to seek increased citizen science participation in SC Bat Watch! through bat presentations, Halloween bat emergence counts, news releases, social media posts, and Bat Watch training opportunities.
