EcoWest News, November 3, 2026

Welcome to EcoWest News, a weekly round-up of news and resources that you can put to use in addressing environmental issues and protecting the wild in your community.

Bats

In a noisy world, bats rely on various techniques to be heard and to pick out the sounds that matter to them: echolocation to suppress background noise, the Doppler effect to judge speed, chattering at a pitch others can’t understand, and halting echolocation to eavesdrop. [Smithsonian Magazine]

McMaster University’s Bat Lab has Canada’s only captive colony of bats. Their research topics include using wing patterns to identify bats, aging, and binaural hearing. [McMaster News]

A new study estimates that wind turbines are killing up to 1.5 million bats per year in the US. Researchers are fine-tuning methods of curtailing turbine activity when bats are most at risk, e.g. at low wind speeds or at dawn and dusk. [CBC]

Land Use

Eos magazine has dedicated an entire issue to peatlands. Topics include the role of restored peatlands as carbon sinks and how solar panels over peatlands increase avian biodiversity. [Eos]

The maps for SaskPower’s proposed 155-kilometre transmission line have been updated. A second round of open houses will be held in November in Beechy, Outlook, and Swift Current. [Pasture Posts, Pasture Posts]

Agriculture

Manitoba farmers see risks but also benefits from a changing climate. Actions include regenerative farming practices and stream-bank stabilization projects. [The Narwhal]

The Allerton Project is a working farm and research centre in the UK using a range of sustainable agriculture, habitat creation, and landscape management methods to show how agriculture can be a part of environmental action. [The Guardian]

Youth

A young activist says it’s important to create an intergenerational environmental movement to share the knowledge and experience of elders with young people, share the workload, and develop future leaders. [Icarus Complex]

Capilano University in BC has been named a World Wildlife Fund Canada Living Campus for the 2025-2026 academic year. A key project helped students and employees learn how to safely and respectfully share the landscape with local wildlife. [Capilano University]

Problem-Solving

When you see a rat problem, the first question to ask is: What are humans doing that is providing resources allowing rats to exist in that space? Rather than just indiscriminate removal of rats from the landscape, can we actually look at where harms are occurring and have more targeted interventions? [The Narwhal]

Consumers see businesses as more sustainable when they provide more eco-friendly items rather than when they remove unnecessary ones—even though subtracting can lead to lower waste and a smaller footprint. How do we counteract this bias? [Anthropocene]

An interspecies council asked participants to speak from the perspective of the creatures that rely on Germany’s Spree River, such as otters, crabs, or moss. Interspecies councils are acts of imagination and council decisions aren’t legally binding. “The point is to experiment with an alternative to our current political model: to ask unfamiliar questions, test different forms of representation, and see what they reveal.” [Atmos]

Making a Difference

The Haida Nation is crafting artificial dens from stumps where coastal black bears can shelter and nurse their newborns this coming winter. They hope the effort doesn’t become an excuse for clear-cutting to continue unchecked. [The Narwhal]

Portable, rechargeable, and grid-independent solar kits fuel everything from communication and cooking to cooling and education in disaster zones. [Euro News]

Nature’s Wonders

There are over 15,000 species of ants. Jumping genes, pieces of DNA that can move to different locations within a genome and produce additional copies of themselves, may have helped ants prosper by contributing to the expansion of ants’ odorant receptors. Ants depend heavily on chemical cues to find their way, identify members of their own colonies, and coordinate activities with other ants. [Science Daily]

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/apmckinlay/55594477767/

EcoFriendly West informs and encourages initiatives that support Western Canada’s natural environment through its online publication and the Nature Companion website/app. Like us on Facebook, follow us on BlueSky, X, and Mastodon, or subscribe by email.