In bat-related news, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has put the northern long-eared bat on the endangered species list! D: Apparently, they’re succumbing to “white-nose syndrome,” which is caused by a fungus that affects their snootles and wings; the bats wake up during hibernation, because of irritation, and then burn their fat stores. They then die because there aren’t any bugs to eat in the middle of winter. If it wasn’t so deadly to the poor little bats, it’d almost be funny, because it kinda makes them look like they’ve been snorting cocaine.
Read about it here:
UPI and
NPR.
I’ve also read from a related article that their population has dropped by over 97 %, up to 99 % in some areas. If we can’t figure out a way to treat or prevent this fungus from infecting and killing our fuzzy fliers, they could be gone forever in another decade. This syndrome has only been around since 2006, so they went from “doing okay,” to “threatened” in 2015, to “endangered species,” all in the span of 14 years.
FWIW, I’ll be doing my part to help, which admittedly isn’t much: I’ll be placing bat houses at my parents’ property, and at my apartment (or rather, on the outdoor porch I have), this coming spring. The latter points to a small woods, but because it faces north and east, I’m hoping to come up with a way of gently heating it, to be more appealing to the bats. I can only imagine how much trouble I’ll be in when my landlord finds I have an endangered species of bat living on the porch…but then, she won’t be able to do much about it, since they’ll be federally protected. :)