Protecting B.C. bats from the deadly white-nose syndrome is one of 178 conservation projects getting a boost with $8.5 million in 2024 funding from the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. More than $1 million of that funding pool will be going to projects focused on Lower Mainland conservation issues or habitat conservation. One of them is the bat project – a multi-year undertaking, co-funded with the Forest Enhancement Society of BC, to help prevent the devastating bat illness, white-nose syndrome, caused by a fungus. “Saving bats and their biodiversity is important,” said project leader Cori Lausen. “To protect several species of building-roosting bats is specifically important in urban and rural areas where high human densities benefit from the insect-eating services of these long-lived yet slow-reproducing mammals.”