It is with great sorrow that I report the White-nose Syndrome fungus has been found on gray bats. Friday, we received word that five bats tested positive in a genetic test for the White-nose Syndrome fungus outside a cave in Shannon County, Missouri-one of only a handful of gray bat hibernacula.
Gray bats are very near and dear to Bat Conservation International’s heart. For decades, we have worked to recover the declining gray bat populations and the species was well on the road to being removed from the Federal Endangered Species List.
That was until White-nose Syndrome showed up in New York four years ago.
BCI and bat scientists around the country have been nervously monitoring the spread of this devastating disease that has killed more than one million bats since 2006. This winter, the White-nose fungus spread to Tennessee, the epicenter of gray bat territory, and we feared the gray bat would be the seventh bat species and the second federally endangered species to be affected by the disease. At the end of winter, the Tennessee Nature Conservancy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and Bat Conservation International’s Caves Coordinator, Jim Kennedy, returned from surveying Hubbard’s Cave — one of the largest gray bat hibernacula — with hopeful news; the colony was stable with no sign of White-nose Syndrome.
But now, the future isn’t looking as bright.
Because of Bat Conservation International’s strong emotional tie to this species, the gray bat was one of the first four Adopt-A-Bats to be released this past holiday season. If you’d like to support gray bats and the work we do, consider adopting a gray bat at https://batcon.org/index.php/support-bci/adopt-a-bat/stepAdopt.html
Thanks for your support!
Nina Fascione, Executive Director, Bat Conservation International
The thing that concerns me is in addition to this fungus, we have wind farms that decimate bat populations. Except for BCI back East, no one studies them around here. Since bats reproduce slowly like Eagles, it doesn’t take much to change a population.
Then we loose our natural insect control, go back to use of chemicals which kill good bugs as well as bad bugs, as well as our pollinators. With the combination of events, Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring looms in our future.
This is why the native bee basics is important to get going on a local level in our backyards and gardens. On a local level we are not using insecticides, but planting beneficial insect plants to have nature take care of it’s own.
Simple stuff and that is always the most difficult for the public to digest.
The good news is when people hear about native bees they get excited and want to do something in their backyard which is where it all begins.
While things do not look good on a large scale, on a local level there is great interest and enthusiasm to move in the right direction. Emmett Burk has no idea how important his (native bee block) Eagle Scout project is.
Brian Murphy, Walnut Creek, Calif.
Dear Brian, Nina, & others:
Any project that will help attract native bees to our backyards is important. We need those native pollenators!
We also need to come up with a way to help save the bats that are being killed off by White-nose Syndrome fungus! You can read more about this problem on the Bat Conservation International website: http://www.batcon.org/index.php/what-we-do/white-nose-syndrome.html
And here is the home page of the Bat Conservation International website that shows you all the different things this nonprofit organization is doing for bats: http://www.batcon.org/
It’s time to get batty, everyone! /Gary