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Bat Deaths Mirrors Honeybee CCD - cases confirmed in w.virginia

by car1edb | February 24, 2009 at 12:54 pm

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The results are in, and the news is not good. The U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center has confirmed that bats from West Virginia caves have tested positive for the deadly fungal disease white-nose syndrome. There is a possibility that the incurable disease has been detected in colonies hibernating in New Hampshire as well, indicating that it is continuing to spread. Bat deaths due to infection are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands, with the largest impact on little brown bat populations, the most common species in the United States.

Kelly Burgess

This is interesting if not worrying - another "canary in the mine" warning?

NPR : "Wildlife biologists are scrambling to understand a mysterious epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of bats in upstate New York. Scientists are trying to prevent the sickness from spreading" (Audio)

Previous NP info.

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“By all predictions it will continue to move west across the United States,” says Joe Kath, endangered species program manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “And we’ve been told here in Illinois it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when it will arrive.” Kath says computer models predict the Indiana bat could become extinct by 2025 at present rates of decline. With the possible arrival of white nose syndrome, researchers are scrambling to figure out how to help the bats before the timeline of extinction is moved up — way up. “How it got here and why is still a mystery,” Kath says of the fungus. “It’s very scary stuff.”

CHRIS YOUNG

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