Bad for Bats

[MarkBC]

This disease of bats is not new news, but it's spreading west -- now found west of the Mississippi.

White-Nose Syndrome: A Scourge In The Bat Caves
by VERONIQUE LACAPRA


Last time I visited Great Basin National Park (on of my favorite places) I noticed notices on the campground bulletin board about it. The notices said that before touring Lehman Caves in the park, people who had been in caves back east should not wear the same clothes, or some other precautions like that, to avoid contaminating Lehman Caves with the fungus.

In the NPR story linked above, a USF&WS guy said, "one of the greatest population declines through disease that's ever been recorded for a mammal species".
I think bats are cool -- flying mammals! Stuff like this makes me sad.

 

[MidnightRider]

I heard about this too when I was at Carlsbad Caverns NM last month. They too were asking that you not enter the Caverns if you had been to other caves with the same shoes, clothes, backpacks, gear, etc. It seems that bats are an important part of the food chain too.

 

[Smokecreek1]

I heard about this too when I was at Carlsbad Caverns NM last month. They too were asking that you not enter the Caverns if you had been to other caves with the same shoes, clothes, backpacks, gear, etc. It seems that bats are an important part of the food chain too.


Some places have put bats on the endangered list. Bats are like the mammal version of the bee-do allot of pollinating and they eat allot of bad bugs and things-real important for the environment and the there are lot's of inventories and studies going on to figure out numbers and locations and other data so they can be managed and protected>

Smoke

 

[highz]

Apparently, the same fungus is found in bats in Europe, but they have immunity to the lethal effects. This indicates it originated there and was introduced to the Americas recently.

Sad, yes. Let's hope our bats develop immunity before they become extinct.