Feds Criticized in Fight Against Killer Bat Disease

By Brandon Keim November 12, 2010 | 7:00 am | Categories: Animals, Government


As an apocalyptic bat disease threatens to spread across the United States, the stage is set for a showdown between the federal government and environmentalists who feel enough isn’t being done to stop it.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released the second draft version on Oct. 27 of its national response plan for White Nose Syndrome, which has killed more than a million cave-dwelling bats since emerging four years ago.

On the same day, the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity issued a press release excoriating the plan, calling it a “slow-motion response” to a disease that’s already destroyed a major part of the animal kingdom in the eastern U.S., and shows no sign of slowing.

“You have to pick a model that’s appropriate to the situation,” said Mollie Matteson, a conservation advocate at the Centers for Biological Diversity. “I’m afraid this one will be perfected by the time White Nose Syndrome reaches California.”

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/white-nose-plan/

A Visit to a Site of the Batpocalypse
By Brandon Keim November 12, 2010 | 6:59 am |



On this little brown bat, the fungus is already evident, growing in patches on its wings.

Bat wings are marvelous pieces of design. Bats may be the only flying mammals, but they're as aerodynamic and nimble as any bird. The fungus will eat right into them. It's one likely reason why bats with WNS seem to wake and groom so often during the winter. And then, as waking from hibernation is so draining -- imagine having the flu, and being driven out of bed into the cold at 3 in the morning again, and again, and again -- they burn up their fat reserves and fly outside, looking for food. Except it's winter, and there is no food.

One Pennsylvania biologist I visited described a cave -- visible on the landscape as a hole in the ground -- out of which a bat flew, every minute, for about six weeks last winter. The bats died scattered in the snow of the surrounding countryside. It's as if the ground itself were sick, spewing up life.

New York has lost more than 90 percent of its cave-dwelling, hibernating bats. So has Vermont. The disease has spread to 14 states and two Canadian provinces, and could go nationwide. Up to half of all bat species in the United States may be threatened.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/white-nose-cave-visit/

in the Government appears corrupt in dealing with this stuff. I am really angry about it!