Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Bats are dying by the thousands and as yet no one knows the reason why.
Bats in New York and Vermont are not surviving their hibernation period. As many as 11,000 bats were found dead last winter and this winter isn’t shaping up to be any better.
Scientists don’t know if what is killing the bats is contagious, or if can be spread to humans. For now they are asking people to stay out of caves and mines with bats until they can figure out how the disease is being spread and in fact what the disease may be.
The dead bats are found with a white fungus ring around their noses. Experts don’t at this time know if that white fungus is a cause or merely a symptom. People could unknowingly spread the disease from cave to cave since it is not yet known how the disease is spread.
The bats are using up stored fat reserves before they would normally wake up from hibernation. Essentially the bats are starving to death in their sleep.
Literally hundreds of thousands of bats hibernate in just 5 caves and mines in New York State. With as many as 300 little critters sleeping in just 1 square foot the spread of this unknown disease is especially troubling to scientists.
Nearly half of the entire population of Indiana bats migrates to hibernate in just one cave in New York. That cave is infected with the mystery disease. Indiana bats are on the state and federal endangered species list.
Photo Thanks: Scientific American
Labels: Bats die-off, Endangered species act, Honeybee
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Bat die-off eeriely similar to that of the honeybees?
