Mt. Zion Baptist Church at Moraine State Park really did have bats in its belfry.

According to Stephanie Taylor, environmental education specialist at the park, the bats were living in the church roof and its bell tower.

A couple of years ago, when the bat exits were blocked to prevent them from recolonizing after a winter in hibernation, the bats moved into a nearby “bat condominium.” At one time that structure had 4,000 bats, but because of a fatal disease that number is probably much lower.

Taylor really likes bats. Contrary to rumors, they are very clean and they are not blind. They have very accurate echolocation navigation.

“They know what they are doing,” said Taylor.

“They perform a huge ecological service,” said Nate Zalik, wildlife biologist with state Game Commission's Bureau of Wildlife Management.

“A single bat consumes more than 500 insects in an hour. A colony of 100 little brown bats can consume a quarter million mosquitoes and other small insects each night,” said Zalik.

Unfortunately, Taylor is losing her bat friends to white-nose syndrome (WNS), whose most obvious symptom is a fungus that grows on the noses and faces of hibernating bats.

“The disease is causing massive mortality of hibernating bats,” said Zalik.

Zalik and his colleague, Cal Butchkoski, travel statewide for the Game Commission. “We first detected it because people started reporting bats in the landscape when they should not be out,” said Butchkoski.

“Small brown bats were our most common species, but they are getting hit pretty hard by white nose,” said Butchkoski.

“It grows in temperatures from 38 to 50 degrees,” said Butchkoski. “The spores get transmitted one bat to another.”

While humans cannot get WNS, fewer bats means more bugs. Moraine State Park staff members are monitoring its bat population.

“Moraine is a good habitat because of the water,” said Taylor. “It draws the mosquitoes and the bats like the mosquitoes.”

From bat counts, Taylor believes the park lost about 75 percent of its bats between 2011 and 2012.

The Appalachian Bat Survey, which includes Pennsylvania, is under way right now.

“Abandoned houses, barns, church steeples and even currently occupied structures can provide a summer home to female bats and their young,” said Zalik. “Monitoring these 'maternity colonies' can give biologists a good idea of how bat populations in an area are doing.”

“Last year we had 172 reports submitted and 90 of those were from volunteers,” said Zalik.

Game Commission records indicate only a few sites reported from Butler County in 2012 and even fewer reported in surrounding counties.

Butchkoski said, “Where we see the little brown hanging in there, we try to provide some management. If bats are getting sealed out of a building, we will actually come out and install a box.”

Bat boxes can house populations from a few bats up to thousands.

Taylor said it is easy to do a bat survey if people know where bats are living.

For a house Taylor suggested one or two people on each side of the house.

“We recommend people position themselves where they can see the bats silhouetted against the sky,” said Zalik.

“They start to exit this time of year around 8:45 to 9:15 p.m.,” said Zalik.

“In the first five minutes you'll get most of them, and then there are stragglers for 10 or 15 minutes,” said Taylor.

Zalik said that even one night of reporting is helpful.

To be the most helpful, people should survey between the last week in May and the third week in June, before the pups begin to fly.

“Another survey done between July 4 and July 20 when the pups are flying can provide an estimate of how many pups were born,” said Zalik.

Tom Dubovi, a Leechburg resident who works in Butler, and his sons monitor a barn.

“We knew we had some bats. This will be our sixth year,” said Dubovi.“I'd hate to see the species die off. We do it because we feel we're doing a service for the Game Commission so they can better monitor.”

“At our peak we had 225. Last year we only had 8. That's the crash of the population,” said Dubovi.

“I think the bats are just important to the environment and the ecosystem. They are an ugly-looking thing but we need to assist them in surviving this disease,” said Dubovi.

To learn more about bats, visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission website at www.pgc.state.pa.us. Find “Pennsylvania Bats” under the wild mammals section. Or do a search for “Appalachian Bat Count PA.” The website provides a guide for the steps of the survey.A bat program at Moraine State Park is at 8 p.m. July 26. The event includes a bat count.