In Deep / 第一期

Bat Die-offs Spread to 11 States and Scientists Call It “Crisis”
First victims of white-nose fungus now found in Ontario, Canada, bat colony.

“These bats have been around for some 50 million years and have been able to adapt very well to their natural conditions. And in a very short span under our watch, they are disappearing from our forests and ecosystems.” - Scott Darling, Vermont Wildlife Biologist

March 25, 2010 Louisville, Kentucky - A week ago in Louisville, Kentucky, the federal Fish and Wildlife Service held a meeting with federal and state biologists March 15-19, to work on a national implementation plan for white-nose syndrome that continues to kill hibernating bats in huge numbers. In some bat hibernation sites this winter, 99% of the bats are dead! One site is the Graphite Mine in New York’s Adirondacks. This once had the largest count of Little Brown Bats in North America – about 200,000 animals. But recently, the count is down to only 2,000.



The killer appears to be the fungus Geomyces destructans that leaves white rings around the bats’ noses and infects ears and wings. Unheard of before February 2006, the white nose fungus syndrome has now spread in four years from the Northeast all the way to Tennessee. Infected states are now up to eleven: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland
and Tennessee.



Then on March 19th, Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources reported the first case of white-nose fungus ever found in Canada. Several bats in the Bancroft-Minden area 124 miles (200 km) west of Ottawa are infected. See websites below.

At the Kentucky meeting, I was able to talk by phone with Wildlife Biologist Scott Darling, who has worked for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department for 28 years. He and his colleagues have never seen anything like this before and I asked him if the bat die-offs are now at a crisis level?