By Andrew Berry
The next time you visit Bernheim’s Edible Garden (and you should come out soon – growing season is upon us!), you may notice some tall wood poles near the back of the garden. Those are newly installed BrandenBark bat roosts. The poles are approximately twenty feet tall and made from black locust that was salvaged from within Bernheim Forest.
Bernheim is home to 12 of the 14 species of bat found in Kentucky, and we are constantly working on finding additional ways to protect them. BrandenBark poles attract the federally endangered Indiana bat, as well as several other species, as maternity colonies and homes for bat pups.
Special thanks to Daniel Kramer, who took this on as his Eagle Scout project, and to our Natural Areas staff, Rick Caldwell and Ronnie Moore for their hard work on this project.