With Halloween just days away, you’re undoubtedly seeing bat images everywhere, which is kind of perfect since it’s also National Bat Week. Too bad that in the real world, bats are suffering, sick and endangered, while governments can’t get their acts together to save bats from a truly monstrous disease: white-nose syndrome (WNS). Instead of fearing bats this holiday, we should be scared of a world without them.
Care2′s Alicia Graef let us know about the American bats that urgently need federal protection: the northern long-eared bat was hit hard by WNS. Our government hasn’t done anything to stop it, but that doesn’t mean that the disease will stop. After first appearing in New York in 2006, WNS has spread to our neighbors in Canada since 2010, and it’s devastating new bat species in its wake, like a real zombie apocalypse.
As reported in CBC News, WNS has hurt eastern Canada’s little brown bats, northern myotis and tri-coloured bats. In New Brunswick, scientists fear that 99 percent of all little brown bats in the area succumbed to the disease. So far, only 22 bats have been counted in that area. Comparatively, in 2011, scientists could count 7,000 little brown bats.
And the disease keeps moving. CBC News reports that WBS is moving at “an average rate of 200-250 kilometres per year.” It’s more of a question of when, not if, the disease will hit Canada’s bats in the west. There’s no current cure for WNS, and scientists fear that in 12 to 18 years, all of Canada’s bats will be affected.
Scientists are trying to cure or contain it. But that research will take a lot of time and money. A silver lining out of this ordeal is a newfound interest in bats. The scientific community realized how little is known about these mammals that fly. Recovering Canada’s bats will take even longer considering that bats only have one offspring per year. Experts predict that a few bats will linger, but they will not be a relevant part of the ecosystem; officially, they will be “functionally extirpated.”
Northern long eared bat image via National Park Service.
Read more at ENN Affiliate, Care2. http://www.care2.com/causes/scary-news-for-canadas-bats.html#ixzz3HXB38k00