Bat boxes donated to parks department

SALEM -- Bats will have new, safe places to roost in the parks thanks to a local scout troop.

Brownie Troop 80124 recently donated three bat boxes to the parks department. For their efforts the scouts earned a merit badge for planning and completing an eco-friendly conservation project.

The boxes will provide a safe place for bats to roost as natural roosting locations become scarcer, and chimneys are capped with increasing frequency, and help protect bats from being woken during hibernation and starving. Each box can hold 70 bats, meaning they've provided safe homes away from people's chimneys and attics for 210 bats.

The bats aren't the only ones who'll benefit from their new housing arrangement though, as they can eat as many as 630,000 nuisance insects in a single night.

The panels for the boxes were cut out by Austintown Fitch teacher Sean Fouse and his students and were assembled and decorated by the scouts. Parks Director Kelli Pastore said that they had been on telephone poles in Waterworth Memorial Park near the duck pond.