Seeing more bats in Maine? Here’s why.

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • August 7, 2025

The 2010s were a tough decade for bats in Maine and across much of the United States and Canada as a disease called white-nose syndrome spread quickly, decimating populations as it went. First identified in Maine in Oxford County in 2010 or 2011, the syndrome led to an estimated 97% decline in the number of bats here: A survey that counted 790 bats in 2010 found just 27 by 2016. But according to Corey Stearns, a biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, but bat populations have been rebounding in recent years as well, bringing back a species that was as much a part of Maine summer nights as peepers and lightning bugs.