Voyageurs Area Council and Boy Scouts of America installed bat boxes Saturday near Island Lake.

As part of a sustainable forestry initiative, 70 bat boxes were installed on Minnesota Power land in St. Louis County.

Several forest bat species in Minnesota are now considered endangered because of a fungus that causes white-nose syndrome.

With high-quality boxes, bats can safely raise their young in the summer months.

Director of Forest Policy for the Minnesota Forest Industries Rick Horton said the goal of the boxes is to help the bats survive and thrive for generations to come.

"What we're doing here is building these bat boxes as places for the female bats can raise their young in safety," Horton said. "Normally they would raise them on the trunk of a tree and they would be vulnerable to predators but these boxes are deep and a raccoon would have a difficult time reaching up to them and getting them."

Boy Scouts learned how bats can raise their young safely in these boxes so they can repopulate the skies of Minnesota.

They installed all the boxes in just an hour and a half.

To watch the video version of this report and see related stories, follow this link to the KBJR-TV website. https://kbjr6.com/2021/06/05/boy-scouts-install-70-boxes-to-help-bats-safely-raise-their-young/