HALIFAX -- Years after a Maritime species of brown bat was wiped out by disease, a new species of bat has been discovered on Prince Edward Island.

Researchers at Prince Edward Island National Park have made an exciting discovery this year, as they try to get a clearer picture of bat populations in Atlantic Canada.

The Eastern red bat was a species that had been flying under the radar on P.E.I., until now.

“We’ve identified them based on these echolocation calls, and it turns out this is not actually the first year we have detected them. It’s just in past years, they’ve gone unnoticed,” says Jordi Segers of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative.

Over the past few years, Parks Canada has been using their own kind of ‘bat signal’; acoustic detectors that monitor and research bats in the province’s national park.

Most of the calls they get are those of endangered little brown bats, but this year, they were able to confirm a new species on the island.

“Having that long term monitoring data and being able to look back, we can confirm that these bats do migrate through P.E.I. and do use the National Park for part of their migration,” says species-at-risk ecologist Kim Gamble.

Researchers in Atlantic Canada have been working to get more information about bat populations in the region.

Jordi Segers, program coordinator of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative’s White Nose Syndrome Scientific Program, says they’re working on training people in all Atlantic provinces to do their own acoustic monitoring.

“So we will eventually get this much more complete picture, not just of the Eastern red bat, but also our federally endangered species of bats,” says Segers.

A ‘bat hotline’ has been set up for citizen scientists who are being asked to call about any bats they see in their area.

Projects meant to help researchers protect, and better understand the habitats of the bats that call this part of the world home.