13 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"Scientists studying white nose syndrome in bats estimate the fungal ailment has killed at least
5.7 million bats in 16 states and Canada, providing alarming new numbers about the scope of its decimation.
White nose is caused by a fungus that prompts bats to wake from their winter hibernation and
die after they fly into the cold air in a doomed search for insects.
First detected in a cave west of Albany in 2006, white nose has spread to 16 states from the
Northeast to the South and as far west as Kentucky. It also has been detected in four Canadian provinces.

Bats provide tremendous value to the U.S. economy as natural pest control for American farms and forests every year, while playing an essential role in helping to control insects that can spread disease to people," said agency director Dan Ashe."

http://www.msnbc.msn...ws-environment/


From an old song- "Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing."
Bees, now bats.
Plan for a boatload of insects and very few flowers.

This site has the numbers even higher.
http://www.treehugge...ontent=My Yahoo

[Mon-Jes]

White nose was (is) a concern in TX, too. Not sure if it's actually, physically affected the bat populations there, but considering how necessary the bats in Austin are to cutting down on the bug population, hearing about something that could wipe out your bat population just isn't good news. :-(

[mariaandrea]

Oh dear. Glad it hasn't reached the far West yet. That's terrible news. I remember camping one year on the ocean and being on the beach just after sunset when the mosquitoes were bad. We were just about to go back to the campsite when the bats came out and were flying so close it felt like being dive bombed. One actually brushed my head and almost got tangled in my hair. It was a very cool experience. Good thing we weren't afraid of bats! And, we didn't get any mosquito bites.

[Mon-Jes]

Yeah, who knows how bad Texas would be without its bats! Some of those summers, even in Central Texas, were as bad as Houston's. Very muggy, with mosquitoes. And that's with bat control--it would be awful if the bats weren't around!

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Mon-Jes, on 20 January 2012 - 01:06 AM, said:

Yeah, who knows how bad Texas would be without its bats! Some of those summers, even in Central Texas,
were as bad as Houston's. Very muggy, with mosquitoes. And that's with bat control--it would be awful if the bats weren't around!

Yes, in general agreed, especially in the south but with the drought, there wasn't one single mosquito in this
area last year.
But we still need bats, insects or not.

[Ecodisaster]

We are all in the same wheel of life. All species help each other without even realizing it. Bats are essential to the balance of the environment.
Kind of reminds you of the bee problem, doesn't it?

[zararina]

So true that each species have roles in the environment and help in balancing the the ecosystem.  Even bats seems not to be an endangered species (some kind of bats might be...) they served special role on some countries or places that have bugs that would affect humans and other living creatures there.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

zararina, on 21 January 2012 - 07:58 AM, said:

So true that each species have roles in the environment and help in balancing the the ecosystem.  Even bats seems not to be an endangered species (some kind of bats might be...) they served special role on some countries or places that have bugs that would affect humans and other living creatures there.

It's not just the insects they consume; they are great pollinators too.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"More Kentucky  bats have the deadly white-nose syndrome.
The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources announced today that they have confirmed the disease in bats
at three Breckinridge County caves.
Last winter at the end of the survey season, white-nosed syndrome was confirmed in a cave located in Trigg County, in southwestern Kentucky. This was the first documentation of the disease in the state.
The disease has killed between 5.7 million to 6.7 million cave-dwelling bats in eastern North America in recent years."

http://blogs.courier...ts-in-kentucky/

[sculptor]

today
i'm downloading designs for bat shacks/houses/roosts

i'm thinking that, if i spread them out in the trees, and attach some to the buildings where i can bleed a little heat for them in really cold winters(aim for 50 degrees, and look for above freezing--------------probably means making the outside walls of the house about 2 inches thick or more---and i saved a lot of 2,3,and four inch thick cypress cutoffs from the greenhouse framing-------..., that done, i think i can hit the heat goal with a hole drilled into the buildings the diameter of a soda straw) :)

i'll help the local populations have a chance to remain healthy

here are the sites i'm reading:

http://www.fws.gov/a...eficialbats.pdf
and
http://www.batcon.org/

and then there's
http://www.google.co...iw=1152&bih=612
(lost of plans there)

i've been thinking about building some of these for a long time, and now seems to be the time to act
maybe it'll help, maybe it really wont matter to the greater species-------------but maybe a few local bats will find comfort there?

as i study, i'll try to size the bathouses to the individual sub species
and design to the best of my woodworking skills


advice, thoughts, anyone ever done this before???

oh, and,
the greenhouse/solar collector/solarium has been running about 60-70 degrees(f) above ambient this past week---
--
comprising 1/4 of the total building's square footage, and 1/3 of the volume, -when finished, i'm feeling more and more confident that it'll take care of over 1/2 the buildings heating needs-during the cold of winter, and all during the "cool" months of autumn and spring-------and have an aesthetic component that nourishes the body and sooths the soul

[Shortpoet-GTD]

"The mysterious deaths of millions of bats in Canada and the United States over the past several years
were caused by a fungus that hitchhiked from Europe, scientists reported Monday.


Experts had suspected that an invasive species was to blame for the die-off from "white nose syndrome."
Now there's direct evidence the culprit was not native to North America.

The fungal illness has not caused widespread deaths among European bats unlike in the U.S. and Canada.
In North America more than 5.7 million bats have died since 2006 when white nose syndrome
was first detected in a cave in upstate New York."
http://www.huffingto...=green&ir=Green

[dconklin]

I heard something about the white nose syndrome, but didn't know much about it.  I know we actually had a couple bats that were flying around about a month ago.  Early for here, but yet the weather wasn't quite as cold as it usually is.  I have not seen any since, but there may be some down by the river.  We usually see them flying around close to the house but haven't since last month.  I am in NJ.

[dconklin]

I am happy to announce that on our way home from our walk, we were seeing bats.  I was a little concerned given how many are dying and I know we saw them later last year and earlier this year then normal.  We saw them in March and then didn't see them again.

Tonight we saw quite a few bats flying around like we normally would-phew! I was happy to see the little critters

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Not directly related to the white nose fungus but millions of bats have been
saved
from urban sprawl in the area of San Antonio, Texas.
Conservation groups, local officials and land developers worked together to keep the sprawl (and lights;
which the bats would have been attracted to) away from a large cave in the area.
The main player was the Nature Conservancy. Kudos to them!!
Via NPR news-
http://www.npr.org/2...ampaign=science