A Destuctive Epidemic

[groovedaddy]

Since its discovery in a New York State cave in 2006, the fungus called Geomyces destructans has killed about a million cave-dwelling bats of several different species, including the most common Northeastern species, the little brown bat.

A new study, published in Science last week, concludes that little brown bats are likely to be extinct within two decades, possibly sooner. According to bat conservation experts, this is “the most precipitous decline of North American wildlife in recorded history” — worse than the destruction of the American bison and the passenger pigeon.

Bats afflicted with white-nose syndrome show white fungal splotches. Irritated by the fungus, which destroys the underlying tissue, bats rouse from hibernation early, depleting their energy reserves. Most bats infected with the syndrome are grossly underweight. In some caves, all the bats have died. And the disease has spread with astonishing speed, reaching Oklahoma this spring. In response, state and federal agencies have begun keeping humans out of caves and abandoned mines where bats roost in hopes of slowing the fungus.

It is difficult to imagine that an entire species, whose numbers are historically very large, could actually disappear. It is even more difficult, but equally unpleasant, to imagine how their disappearance might change an entire ecosystem.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/opinion/10tue4.html?th&emc=th

[phantom power]

1. Tangentially, I really hate throwaway phrases like "difficult to imagine..."

If you find extinction, regardless of population, "difficult to imagine" you didn't pay attention in biology.
x(

[BonnieJW]

2. People have different opinions of bats,

but they are great at keeping insects under control and they are polinators. Take away the bees and the bats and we are screwed.