- Bucks County, PA Bats Will Be Dead By The Spring
-
- Scientist - Bucks County's Bats Will Be Dead By Spring
-
- By Amanda Cregan
- phillyBurbs.com
-
- The majority of bats, which fly across the night sky
and feed on hundreds of thousands of insects each night in Upper and Central
Bucks, will not make it past the winter months, according to the Pennsylvania
Game Commission.
-
- White-Nose Syndrome, a mysterious disease that is killing
off bat populations up and down the Northeast, has finally hit the Durham
bat mine.
-
- Although state scientists are trying a new, experimental
treatment for the disease, commission biologist Greg Turner says it's most
likely too late and too little to save the 8,000 to 10,000 little brown
bats and other species of bats, which hibernate deep inside an abandoned
iron mine tucked into a hillside in Durham.
-
- Reports that bats across the Delaware River, in New Jersey,
were being affected, brought game commission officials last week to the
Durham mine, the second-largest hibernaculum in Pennsylvania.
-
- "Right now, the Durham mine is affected," said
Turner, an endangered mammal specialist. "About two-thirds of the
bats we had handled all had the fungus on them already."
-
- He estimates that 80 to 90 percent of Durham's bats will
be dead by April, the month when healthy bats emerge from hibernation and
begin mating season.
-
- January 13, 2010 05:47 PM
-
- http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/92/2010/january/
- 13/bucks-countys-bats-will-be-dead-by-the-spring.html
-
-
-
-
- White Nose Syndrome: Bat Population May Never Recover
-
-
- By Benning W. De La Mater
-
- Berkshire Eagle Staff
- 1-13-10
-
- SHEFFIELD -- The bat population in Massachusetts may
never reach the levels it once did, and wildlife biologists fear that the
disease that has decimated populations here and across the Northeast may
spread south in the coming months.
-
- It's called White Nose Syndrome, and it's an affliction
that continues to stump the environmental community.
-
- Andrew Madden, the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife
Western District Manager, spoke about the disease Tuesday night as part
of the lecture series at Bartholomew's Cobble.
-
- "This is one of the most important ecological issues
facing us today," he said. "Wildlife biologists see animal populations
go up and down over the years, but we've never seen as precipitous a decline
like we've seen in the bats."
-
- WNS was first discovered in a Schoharie County, N.Y.,
bat population in 2006. By 2007, it was detected in several New England
states, including Massachusetts.
-
- While it's still unknown what percentage of the state's
bats have been affected, Madden said the disease has yielded catastrophic
results in some parts of the sate. Mortality in some caves and mines has
reached 95 or 100 percent.
-
- Massachusetts' largest bat colony was in Chester in what
was an abandoned mine. It averaged between 8,000 and 10,000 bats. By the
middle of this past summer, the population was completely wiped out.
-
- Madden said several of the smaller mines and caves in
southern Berkshire County have also been affected, as people have found
several hundred dead bats outside the openings.
-
- The bats had the characteristic white, powdery fungus
on their muzzles. Biologists don't know if the cold-loving fungus -- Geomyces
destructans -- is a symptom of WNS or the cause.
-
- The fungus spreads from their faces to their wings and
burns up their stores of body fat during hibernation. Hungry, the bats
wake during the winter months and fly out of the caves in search of food.
The bats end up starving when they fail to find anything to eat.
-
- Madden said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is leading
the effort to find a cause. More than a dozen research labs are currently
studying the syndrome.
-
- Evidence of the syndrome has appeared in bats throughout
the Northeast and is now being found as far south as Virginia, a fact that
has scientists scared.
-
- "This is a rapid spread in just three years,"
Madden said. "The worry is that if it spreads to Kentucky and Tennessee,
where populations are in the hundreds of thousands, then we could be in
trouble."
-
- Why should we concerned about a species that most people
fear? Madden said one bat can eat thousands of mosquitoes every summer,
so there's no telling how changes to the bat population could ripple through
the ecosystem, not to mention the human food chain.
-
- Rene Wendell, conservation ranger at the Cobble, said
he asked Madden to speak because WNS was the topic most visitors were asking
about in the last year.
-
- "We used to have bats flying around here at night,
but I haven't seen any in months," he said. "Everyone's been
asking, 'What's going on with the bats?'"
-
- To reach Benning W. De La Mater
- bdelamater@berkshireeagle.com
-
-
- http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_14176761?source=most_emailed
-
-
-
-
- Why Mass Die-Off Of Bats Should Be Of Grave Concern
-
-
- NECN - Anya Huneke, Dorset, VT
-
-
- When it comes to cute animals, bats are not generally
on the top of the list. But they are a vital part of our eco-system- as
a major predator of insects.
-
- And now they are being threatened with extinction-- a
number of species have contracted a disease that is causing massive die-offs.
-
- Getting to the top of mount Aeolus in East Dorset Vermont,
is never an easy feat. Especially in the dead of winter, when snow shoes
are a must on this two mile uphill climb.
-
- But it's a climb biologists are compelled to make - now,
perhaps, more than ever before, as they search for answers to a mystery
that has them profoundly baffled... And concerned.
-
- The Aeolus cave is where bats from all over New England
hibernate for the winter, historically, the largest site of its kind in
the region.
-
- But in just two years' time, the population of bats here
has plummeted- ever since a disease called 'white nose syndrome' was discovered
in caves and mines across the state.
-
- The fungus - which appears on the muzzles and wings of
bats - was first identified in New York during the winter of 2006 and 7...
And quickly spread to neighboring states- including Vermont and Massachusetts.
-
- It has now moved as far south as Virginia.
-
- Tuesday, a group of five wildlife experts ventured into
Aeolus cave. Barely inside the entrance- they started to lose hope. A few
bats - frozen to death - clung to the wall. And farther in, more disheartening
signs. The main room of the cave is generally filled with hibernating bats.
-
- But this time in- scientists spotted just a few small
clusters.
-
- Wildlife biologist Scott Darling had hoped for the best,
but knew the numbers likely would be low.
-
- On a site visit last winter, he found tens of thousands
of bat carcasses on the ground.
-
- The floor of Aeolus is now covered with bat bones-- left
over from a major bat die-off last year. And the ceiling- where there are
normally many thousands of bats- there are now very few.
-
- The difference is stark-- here's a picture from last
year, when infection was already rampant in this cave.
-
- And here is one from this year. Yet little to date is
known about the fungus-- its cause... or its cure. What scientists do know
is that bats with white nose syndrome lose their winter fat reserves faster
than normal... And emerge from hibernation early- and hungry.
-
- During warmer weather, most bats feed on insects-- acting
as a natural pesticide by consuming large quantities each night.
-
- That is one reason the impact of this mass mortality
of bats, experts say, should be of grave concern.
-
- Darling says the timing of this crisis is unfortunate-
with federal funding limited and many other national issues taking precedence.
-
- But *this* issue - these experts say - is unprecedented...
-
- Many infected caves and mines - including Aeolus - are
seeing a 90-percent or greater mortality rate.
-
- Experts say bats are slow to reproduce- about one offspring
per year. So with the number of bat deaths across the region now moving
into the millions, a fix, if one is found, will be years in the making.
-
- http://www.necn.com/Boston/SciTech/2010/01/14/Why-mass-dieoff-of-bats/1263476498.html
-
-
-
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural
Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also
my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai
sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
|
