Mysterious Disease Decimating Bats... Which No One Is Talking About

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At least 1 million bats in the past three years have been wiped out by a puzzling, widespread disease dubbed "white-nose syndrome" in what preeminent US scientists are calling the most precipitous decline of North American wildlife in human history. If it isn't slowed or stopped, they believe bats will continue disappearing from the landscape in huge numbers and that entire species could become extinct within a decade.

"We're at the vanguard of an environmental catastrophe."

Why? Because bats are insect-eating machines, capable of consuming nearly half their body weight in insects each night. Take them out of the equation and we'll have an explosion of pests, including disease-carrying mosquitoes and agriculturally destructive beetles, moths, leafhoppers and other foes of the farmers, who may be forced to use more pesticides as a result.

This is really worrying, especially being from a place that relies upon a large population of the ugly little buggers to ward off what would surely be an intolerable onslaught of insects during the summer. You sit outside here in the warm months and the sky is just full of them, I've even collided with one on multiple occasions

I heard about this story last year some time and it sounds as though they didn't get near the funding they were looking for so a cure can be found. Hopefully some other nations will get together and raise the money, American politicians don't seem to take this sort of thing seriously.

First the bees, now the bats

Bees, Bats, Birds and boys. Not a good thing to eradicate. It kind of reminds me of a couple episodes from "The X Files." And not all bats just eat bugs, if you enjoy tequila, bats are the ones that pollinate that type of cactus.

reply to post by Violater1


Hmm I didn't know bats pollinated anything to be honest. Not a big fan of the tequila, but that just goes to show that the implications of a bat die-off are a lot more far reaching than people realize.

There is also a really good thread on this topic here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Just for reference. It is interesting how few people are talking about things like this.

I also have been following this from early last year I believe. This is important.
They are dying from starvation and respiratory illness.
They can't breathe. Kind of like us - these days.
There is fungus on their noses.
This is important.

My wife;s ex is a state ecologist and he says tht the bats are dying from a fungus. It seems to be just making inroads southward into virginia right now and sadly there is not much being done about it. Conditions for the growth of the fungus may actually be enhanced by human activity in the hibernaculums by raising the humidity levels and temperature.
Some colonies are suffering 100% mortality rates so this is very. very serious. I don't know that losing all the bats in the eastern US would cause an ecological catastrophe but in the central and western US it could.
We need to figure this out and stop it soon.

This is the latest from Bat Conservation International regarding the funding for White Nose Syndrome research..

www.batcon.org...

A thought just came to mind. No bats means more bugs. More bugs, like mosquitoes. Birds do eat mosquitoes, especially in during the Arctic migration of the Elk. There, the mosquitoes feed on the Elk, and the hatchlings eat the blood engorged mosquitoes. BOTH the birds and mosquitoes (vectors), carry pathogenic viruses. Less bats, more vectors.

reply to post by Violater1


That's what I worry about. Prepare to see diseases like malaria and yellow fever heading into the northern states and Canada where it was previously unknown.