Bats could decrease mosquitoes and, in turn, the risk of diseases on campus.

The WSU Residence Hall Association (RHA) and the Department of Residence Life are working on a plan to install bat boxes on campus to reduce exposure to diseases like the Zika virus.

One brown bat can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes in a single hour, according to Bat Rescue’s website.

RHA President Cameron Church, one of the people spearheading the project, said the idea behind building the bat boxes is to increase habitat for the bats in order to boost the local population.

“We figured that just increasing the bat population would help lower the mosquito population, which in turn, by default reduces the chance of catching Zika,” Church said.

Church said there is an application online that students can fill out if they want to be a part of the committee responsible for the project.

Once the committee has been formed, Church said their first and main obstacle in putting bat boxes on campus is WSU’s current policy. According to the WSU Safety Policies and Procedures Manual, bats are currently considered pests.

Church said changing the policy could take a lot of time and education, as bats have a negative stereotype of being dangerous.

Bats are the most common source of rabies for humans in the U.S., but most don’t carry the disease, and there are only one to two cases of human rabies every year, according to the Center for Disease and Control.

Church said the benefits of a potential bat increase outweigh the potential risk of other, more trying issues.

“It’s a very low chance of catching a disease from bats,” Church said. “They’re actually really good at promoting biodiversity on campus and around Pullman in general.”

Church said the main focus right now is to build support and investment for the project from different departments and student groups on campus.

Reporting by Dennis Farrell