Bats Die by the Thousands from Mystery Malady in NE U.S.

Bats Die by the Thousands From Mystery Malady in Northeast U.S.
By Tom Randall

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Thousands of bats are dying from an unknown illness in the northeastern U.S. at a rate that could cause extinction, New York state wildlife officials said.

At eight caves in New York and one in Vermont, scientists have seen bat populations plummet over two years. Most bats hibernate in the same cave every winter, keeping annual counts consistent. A cave that had 1,300 bats in January 2006 had 470 bats last year. It recently sheltered just 38.

At another cave, more than 90 percent of about 15,500 bats have died since 2005, and two-thirds that remain now sleep near the cave's entrance, where conditions are less hospitable. Scientists don't know what's causing the deaths, and biologists wearing sanitary clothing and respirators to prevent the spread of disease are collecting the dead for testing as part of a state and U.S. effort.

``There are an awful lot of bat people, even a month ago before we had half of this bad news, all saying the same thing. We've never seen anything like it, and we're all scared,'' said Alan Hicks, the leader of the investigation for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, in a telephone interview today.

Hicks led the probe into the dying bats until last week, when other agencies joined, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, the Northeast Cave Conservancy, the National Speleological Society and researchers from universities across the U.S.

White Fungus

Some bats in the die-off have a white fungus encircling their noses. Most living bats now are underweight, too thin to make it through the winter, Hicks said. They choose their hibernating spots based on weight. Colder resting spots, like the ones near the entrance help energy reserves last longer.

``These guys are hibernating in places you never see healthy bats hibernating,'' Hicks said.

When they're not hibernating, healthy bats eat about half their weight in bugs every night, including mosquitoes, grasshoppers, locusts and moths that can spread disease among humans and devastate crops.

Bat populations are vulnerable to disease during hibernation as they congregate in large numbers in caves, sometimes packed so densely that it's difficult to see the cavern wall behind them. In warmer months, bats migrate hundreds of miles to their summer homes, so a new disease could rapidly spread across the region, Hicks said.

Indiana Bats

Indiana bats, a species considered endangered by the U.S., are especially vulnerable. Half of New York's estimated 52,000 Indiana bats live in a single former mine infected with the white nose fungus. The four most common bats in the region, including the little brown bat and the eastern pipistrelle, the northern long-eared bat and the Indiana bat, all are dying from the disease, Hicks said.

``When you go in a cave, you wonder how many thousands of years the bats have been coming to this particular hole,'' Hicks said. ``Now every site I walk into, I look and I say are these going to be around for my kids to see? Are they going to be sitting out in the front yard and be able to enjoy a bat skipping around a moth?''

A separate malady known as Colony Collapse Disorder has killed millions of bees in the U.S. and threatens $14.6 billion of U.S. crops, including almonds, apples, oranges and blueberries, which rely on bees for pollination, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department. It may cause $75 billion of economic damage if left unchecked, the agency said.

The illness was identified after thousands of U.S. beekeepers found unusually large losses -- 90 percent or more in some cases -- beginning in 2006. Colony Collapse has been found in 35 U.S. states, one Canadian province, and parts of Asia, Europe and South America. Scientists haven't identified the cause and believe it may be the result of several things in combination.

``You have a strong parallel with the bees in that we just don't know what's going on,'' Hicks said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: January 31, 2008 00:07 EST

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aYkAPd6ViRQY&refer=us

I sure hate to hear this. Bats are so beneficial to the ecosystem, plus they are fascinating to watch as they go in and out of their caves.

I put up a bat house one time, but none ever came. Not close enough to water, perhaps. I love bats! Sure do hope they can save them!

Stormy, I love bats too. We still have a few around here, and during the summer evenings I can watch 'em getting rid of the overabundance of bugs we have here, ugh. I love to watch how they whip around in the air! I hope they find out what it is that is causing those bats to die.

Frogs, bees and now bats? Perhaps this is a pattern?

I don't know. I wish I could watch what's going on with nature more than I do, sigh.

This is serious problem - especially with the flooding we've seen over the past few years.

Mosquitoes are going to be way out of control.

It will be interesting to learn the source of the fungus or whatever it is that is killing off the bats.

i remember when i was a kid...every dusk here in NC there would be bats flapping around. i haven't seen a bat in years...

except the other day, i saw one flapping around at about 12 noon and looking lost.

I hope they find out what is causing it. Bats are too valuable.

Sage

We had bat houses that were usually full. The past couple years we've had trouble with them 'falling' out during the day. They can't take off from the ground, they need height to be able to take off. We put some back on the top of a shaded storage shed trying to help them. Just too weak to make it.

I'll put up bat houses in this new location hoping to attract some. I enjoy watching them at night and they do keep the mosquitoes under control.

The Bat Conservancy has a wonderful magazine you can order. It features bats from all over the world. Has wonderful hints for houses and goes into the nature of bats getting rid of the myth behind them.

gdpetti,
I hadn't heard about the frogs disappearing. Can you tell me more.

Only certain perople/groups track this stuff... Linda Howe is one... here's a amphibian link from there:
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1378&category=Environment

Here's a short paragraph from Linda today on birds in SanFran area.

February 12, 2008 - Mysterious Deaths of Birds in Tiburon, California.

At least 65 birds have been found dead and washed ashore
at the Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Santuary since January 26, 2008.

“At this point, we don’t know what’s causing this.
While it’s not unusual for us to find dead birds on our shores,
this has now reached a level that should cause a great deal of concern.”
- Brooke Langston, Director, Audubon Center

Tiburon, California, on the edge of San Francisco Bay, is a santuary
for migratory waterbirds and wildlife. See Tiburon Audubon.

There have been recent oil and sewage spills in the area. “Birds are what we call an early indicator of the health of the overall environment,” Langston said. “If something is wrong in the bay, it will normally be the birds who tell us about it first.” Representatives of Audubon California and state agencies are in the process of determining what has caused all the birds to die the past two weeks.

Click to expand...

fair use http://www.earthfiles.com/

Fair Use

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-bats0329.artmar29,0,6261568.story

By RINKER BUCK | Courant Staff Writer
March 29, 2008

A mysterious condition that is already decimating bat populations in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont has spread to Connecticut, with vast implications not only for bats but for the vital role they play in controlling mosquito populations.

Jenny Dickson, a wildlife biologist with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection who entered a major bat hibernaculum (or bat cave) in Litchfield County on Thursday, has confirmed the presence of the usually fatal "white-nose syndrome" on numerous hibernating bats.

The syndrome, first detected in New York state caves in the winter of 2006-07, is so named for the white fungus that coats the noses, legs and wings of afflicted bats. The condition generally causes death before the bats emerge from their winter hibernation. In New York state, more than 80 percent of the bats in affected caves have died over the past two winters, a damaging population loss for a species whose members often live for more than 30 years but reproduce very slowly.

State officials and scientists consider the spread of the condition to Connecticut a major environmental development. This summer, it could affect everything from outdoor barbecuing to farming. In one of nature's most efficient if little-known feats, bats consume as many as 1,200 insects an hour after emerging from their sheltering places every night. This prodigious airborne feeding substantially controls mosquito populations and helps prevent plant-eating insects from damaging crops.

The long-term effect of what appears to be a major die-off of bats is not yet known, but the possibilities clearly worry scientists.

"When you are losing 80 percent of your population all at once, it's a serious conservation concern," Dickson said.

"Bats are our single largest predator of night-flying insects and provide an important form of natural insect control. Any significant depletion in their numbers will also result in a significant effect in other parts of our ecosystem," she said.

Gerri Griswold, director of administration and development for the White Memorial Conservation Center in Litchfield, is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator who has spent the past 16 years studying bats.

"We'd be dead without bats," Griswold said. "They are the No. 1 controller of night-flying insects worldwide. There is one species called the Mexican free-tailed bat in Texas that, from just one large cave, emerges every night to consume 250 tons of insects in eight hours. Bats are crucial to world ecology."

The bat plague was first noticed about a year ago, when hikers and cave enthusiasts in New York state observed bats that were still supposed to be hibernating congregating near cave entrances. Some were even flying out in frigid daytime temperatures to die on the snow. Responding to these reports, wildlife biologists entered known bat caves — as many as 250,000 bats can hibernate in a single large cave — and began documenting the telltale white-nose fungus on the sleeping bats, many of whom also showed signs of emaciation.

An impromptu network of federal and state agencies, and teams of veterinary pathologists — from the University of Connecticut, Cornell and the University of Wisconsin — have been meeting all winter via teleconferences to share information and the results of necropsies of affected bats. But so far they have not been able to determine the cause of the syndrome. The scientists mostly agree, however, that the fungus found on the bodies of infected bats is probably a symptom and not a cause of the condition.

(storie continues -- see link)

Gizmom, thank you for posting that here. It's alarming to see that this has spread. I sure hope that someone is able to figure out what is causing this soon.

I hope they get to the bottom of this.
Anything that eats mosquito's is alright in my book!!

Less bats seem to equal more mosquitos and we all know what that means.... more disease.

More disease, and more bird deaths from west nile. Also, more INSECTS in general. Yuck! This is really scary news. Btw, Gdpetti, thanks for that link you posted earlier in the thread. That's a great site, and while I knew from observation that the frogs were disappearing I had no idea how bad the situation really is, sigh.

I have noticed a decrease in the bat population here too.
The frogs seem to be okay here at the north end of our valley...I have had a abundance of the little croakers this spring and last spring.
But I have not heard very many frogs at the south end of the Rogue Valley for the last several springs.

As much as I hate those flying rodents with their fried monkey faces, without them, there is no us.

No bees to pollenate, no bats to get rid of the pests; no crop, no us.

Lord Jesus come quickly, please!

We have had almost no bats here in our area of Florida and that is not normal. They are usually everywhere this time of the year.

It's not only the bats that are dieing in NY.
The birds seem to be falling from he sky daily now too. In the last year I'll bet I disposed of more then 25 birds found in my yard, that included 1 beautiful owl I found dead in the driveway this winter.

Fungus Kills about 90 Percent of Connecticut's Bats

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-bats-die-off-0318_.artmar18,0,4937214.story

White-nose syndrome, the mysterious plague that is decimating the Northeast's bats, killed off about 90 percent of Connecticut's bats over the winter and is now galloping across the country so quickly that it threatens the nation's — and probably the world's — largest bat populations in the American South.

Jenny Dickson, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection wildlife biologist supervising the detection and control of white-nose syndrome in the state, said Tuesday that visits to two sample caves in Litchfield County in the past two weeks revealed veritable bat catacombs. Dickson's team of wildlife experts found thousands of dead bats floating like dead fish in standing water, or stacked on top of each other along the flat ledges of the cave walls.

"It was grim, and you don't have to be a scientist to realize the implications for the environment inside those caves," said Dickson. "This is a massive, unprecedented die-off, with significant potential impacts on nature, especially insect control."

Findings by Dickson's counterparts in nearby states paint an even more dire picture for Connecticut.

US Fish And Wildlife Service Information Page on White-Nose Syndrome Bats are migratory, and most of Connecticut's bats fly here in the spring from hibernation caves containing hundreds of thousands of bats in the southern Adirondacks, the lower Hudson Valley, Vermont and the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Scientists entering those caves since February have found 90 percent to 95 percent mortality rates, with some caves in New York having death rates approaching 100 percent. All told, scientists following white-nose syndrome have calculated that up to a million bats have already died in the Northeast states.

Scientists say that all bat species are vulnerable to the fungus. Dickson said Tuesday that the disease has hit hard among little brown bats and northern long-eared bats, which are the ones most commonly seen in Connecticut, but that it has spread to other species as well.

Combined with the losses of bats that hibernate in Connecticut, the deaths in neighboring states mean that bats fluttering over evening barbecues or swooping down to devour insects over cornfields will be a rare sight this summer.

The syndrome, first discovered in New York state in 2006, is a condition in which a white fungus coats the heads, legs and wings of hibernating bats. To fight the physiological effects of the fungus, bats deplete their fat reserves before the winter is over, fleeing from their caves in a desperate search for insects to eat. The ravenous, emaciated bats are then found lying in the snow or clinging to the sides of barns, and usually die before enough mosquitoes and moths hatch for them to eat.

Scientists have not been able to explain why the white fungus covering the bats, geomyces, appears in the first place, but the impact on the balance of nature is clear. Bats eat an average of more than 3,000 mosquitoes and moths apiece every night. A large die-off of the species will directly affect activities and industries that rely on natural insect control — recreation, dairy farming and horseback riding, among others.

Scientists working on white-nose syndrome say that they have detected no direct health threat to humans. But they do worry about indirect threats caused by insect-borne diseases, especially after an especially wet fall and winter that produces favorable conditions for mosquito breeding. The number of cases of such diseases as West Nile virus have been very low in Connecticut, but scientists do not know how a larger population of mosquitoes will affect human and animal health.

Dickson said that her team of scientists will be helped by public reports of bats flying in the daytime during the next two weeks, when there are not enough insects for bats to eat. The telltale white fungus on the bats will not be present, because it disappears when exposed to the sun and heat. Reports of daytime sightings, or other erratic behavior by bats, may be made to the DEP's number, 860-675-8130 .

Since it was first detected in New York caves three years ago, white-nose syndrome has crossed state lines, probably carried by migrating bats themselves. Last year, the range of the plague had been restricted to the Albany, N.Y., area and western New England. But this year white-nose syndrome has been confirmed from New Hampshire to southwestern Virginia. The spread of the condition to Virginia especially concerns scientists.


Crops At Risk
Ecologist Merlin Tuttle of Texas is a bat expert and wildlife photographer who leads the battle to save the endangered gray bat.

"The number of bats that have died so far, which is probably over a million now, will be dwarfed by what is going to happen in the next few years," Tuttle said.

"Virginia is right on the border of perhaps the biggest bat hibernation areas in the world — Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky — where there are caves with such large populations of bats we can't even measure how many millions are in there. They spread from this area across vast ranges of the agricultural South. Mortality rates like those we are seeing in the states already hit by [white-nose syndrome] would be devastating for the national bat population."

Studies conducted by Tuttle and other scientists have documented the huge value that bats deliver to farming and forestry. Every June, over the vast corn and cotton fields of Texas, for example, millions of corn earworm moths migrate north from Mexico, descending at dusk to lay their eggs on crop fields. If left unchecked, these eggs would hatch within a few weeks, and then new moths would lay additional eggs, multiplying their scourge and smothering the crops.

Using Doppler radar, radio microphones beamed into the sky and feces studies of free-tailed bats, scientists have documented that "high-altitude foraging" by the bats intercepted most of the moths before they could land on crops, saving millions of acres of cotton and corn. One study concluded that the free-tail bats — there are at least 100 million of them in central Texas — consume more than 2 million pounds of insects every night.

But this balance-of-nature act is not restricted to Texas.

"We have the same corn, the same earworm moths, the same night-feeding by our bats right here in Connecticut," said Dickson. "And now that we have this huge mortality of bats, [white-nose syndrome] could have a severe impact on our crops, but we just don't know yet."


More Need For Pesticides
One scenario that worries wildlife scientists is increased use of pesticides. If farmers see that a crop-eating insect has landed on their fields, they call in crop-dusting planes or truck-sprayers right away, which then encourages other farmers to order spraying. Without enough bats to protect crops, farmers might be tempted this year to use more pesticides, a chemical chain-reaction that can affect people, wildlife and nearby streams, Tuttle and other experts said.

Even if the cause of white-nose syndrome is identified soon, the damage to the bat population has already been substantial.

"This is a species that reproduces very slowly and that lives very long for the wildlife world — many bats survive for 30 years," Dickson said.

"Each time you lose a bat, you're losing a very precious benefit to the environment. It will take generations to replenish this bat population."

Chemtrails?

Had to throw that in there.

Thanks Rex, very interesting. I've had experiences with bats in the past and know that once they get into a house via attic, they are just about impossible to get rid of. Steadfast little buggers. When I was leaning out the attic window on the third story of a very old home, I must of disrupted them and they came squawking at me. I about fell out the window..lol

Vicki