Citizen science project provides clues for bat survival on the islands.
Lopez High School senior Sophie Citro stands silhouetted against a light outside of the school. Her eyes are fixed on an adjacent wall straining to see fuzzy, beige shapes that cling to the wood. Her bug net is clenched in her hand.
She lifts it for a moment before dropping it back down. On this cold winter night there were no moths to be had. At times, Citro said, swarms of the insects will flit around her head as she stands beneath the lights.
Citro is assisting in a moth study organized by the local nonprofit Kwiaht. Her job is to organize a team of moth hunters composed of community members who will catalog moths and collect samples from the coldest winter months.
“I’m looking forward to getting more people interested in moths,” she said. “I feel like there’s a really strong rush of ‘yay!’ when you find moth species you’ve never seen before.”
Citro recalled a night in the summer when she found six silver-spotted tiger moths while hunting at the high school. They are a larger tiger moth variety with a wingspan of about two inches that stand out with their brown and cream coloring and white-spotted wings.
For the most part, moth hunters in the study can expect to find species within two different families, one being the Geometridae, whose caterpillars are known commonly as inch worms, and Noctuidae, which includes cutworms. Both families are largely native to the region. The moths have different habitats that they prefer, from Douglas fir stands to old apple orchards. Finding out which species emerge in the winter could be an important part in habitat management and supporting the islands’ bat populations.
The purpose of the study is to fill in the knowledge gaps around moth and bat ecology while involving community members in a way that boosts scientific literacy. Specifically, it could provide a clue as to what the nine bat species located in the San Juan Islands could be eating during winter months.
A clue to bat survival
In summer 2024, the first case of white nose syndrome in San Juan County was found in a single bat colony. It is a fungal infection that has been killing bats all over the U.S. The fungus grows around the muzzles of bats, causing them to wake from hibernation and waste energy, often resulting in death. Russel Barsh, the director of Kwiaht and project lead of the moth study, believes that bats on the islands may have a resistance to the fungus.
From millions of sound recordings collected over 12 years in the San Juan Islands, Kwiaht has found that these bats do not go into full hibernation but disperse over a wider range and go to sleep for a few days at a time while feeding throughout the winter intermittently. This means that the bats can clean the fungus more often without it building up.
“The fungus might thrive in bat colonies here in the islands but still have little to no real impact because the bats are going to wake up every few days, groom themselves and go off and have a meal and go back to sleep,” Barsh said.
This was a promising theory, but there was a missing piece of the puzzle. Barsh still didn’t know what they were eating. That’s where the study comes in. Barsh believes that the bats could be feasting on winter emergent moths as a food source when other food is scarce. By overlapping bat and moth data, Barsh hopes to shine a light on the winter feeding habits of San Juan County bats.
“It’s this very critical period, December, January, February, when bats would need a lot of calories from something like moths,” Barsh said.
Training community scientists
For Barsh and the Kwiaht team, this study serves an additional purpose. Barsh wants his community to have the tools to think critically about science and know how to understand data. And while reading about science in the news is great, he believes that the key to a well-informed public is to involve community members directly in the scientific process.
“All of that, I think, builds a community that is much much more likely to make sound decisions about the environment,” Barsh said.
Heidi Johnecheck is one of those eight community members working with Kwiaht to learn about moth-bat relationships this year. Johnecheck first became involved with the nonprofit years ago with a project focused on salmon habitat.
“It’s full of surprises,” Johnecheck said. “Moths aren’t something you pay attention to everyday. And so, it’s kind of been fun to make a daily ritual.”
To conduct her role in the study, Johnecheck leaves her patio lights on and goes out when it gets dark to catalog the moths. She takes photos of the moths and sends them to the Kwiaht lab for identification.
The study isn’t without its challenges. By early March, the team will likely be sorting through and identifying around one hundred moth specimens and even more photos.
“Insect identification in general is just really hard,” Citro said. “It’s not like there’s a comprehensive guide to, you know, only moth species that you find in the Pacific Northwest that fly in winter.”
There was also a slowdown in the study related to a permit for the sampling of moths. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife requires a permit for any scientific collection of animal species. Kwiaht volunteers will only take photos of moths until their application is approved.
Barsh hopes to run this study for the next three to five years, allowing Kwiaht to learn more about bat feeding behavior in different weather conditions. But for him, it always comes back to having an impact on his community.
“Where we get the best traction is when we involve people in working on the study of a place that’s already important to them. And helping them understand it better so they can take care of it better,” Barsh said.
— By Lukas Prinos
Also read in Salish Current:
• “Trump administration sued over rare San Juan Island moth,” April 18, 2025
• “Islanders help shape county climate resilience plan,” Oct. 6, 2025
• “Why count birds?,” Jan. 6, 2025
• “How islands respond to threats of climate change,” Oct. 7, 2024
• “Locals in small operation take on ‘tall order’ in marine ecosystem,” Sept. 22, 2023