Researchers with the Pennsylvania Game Commission have been watching over the bats at Canoe Creek Church for nearly a decade. Not only is the church's attic home to an astonishing number of little brown bats, but according to wildlife biologist Cal Butchkoski, the church is also home to the state's largest colony of endangered Indiana bats.

"Here in Pennsylvania, we used to have colonies of Indiana Bats that numbered in thousands. We think we probably have less than a thousand bats... Indiana Bats in the state of Pennsylvania right now."

Butchkoski says as many as six hundred of the bats live in the church. The flying mammals have been on the nation's endangered species list since the 1960s.

Butchkoski says the forests and caves that bats live in are disappearing... so they move into abandoned mines, barns and other man-made structures, like the Canoe Creek Church.

Butchkoski says the large church attic is a great place to study bats up-close.

"We can actually get in there among them and study them. And by collecting all of this information, it's possible that we can develop an artificial site that can be used in management for Indiana Bats and their summer habitats."

Using the church as a model, researchers have been able to design homes specifically for bats... which is an important part of the bat conservation process.

More information's available on the web at GreenWorks.tv. I'm Brad Linder.