White nose syndrome: Bats are dying by the thousands all over New England

[cali]

I just heard this on VPR. It's called white nose syndrome due to a white fungus found on and around the noses of infected bats. Scientists have no idea what this syndrome is or why it's so deadly.

This makes me so sad. Bees and bats and some birds disappearing from the environment here. I don't know of a more beautiful sight than late into dusk when the bats swoop and dive so gracefully in the dying light.

[malaise]

1. When is the batshit crazy president

heading there?

[cali]

2. Never.

Vermont will remain usoiled by his presence- the only state he hasn't set foot in since becoming pretzeldent.

[SpiralHawk]

3. "Our evil republicon plan to trash the planet is on track. Smirk." - Commander AWOL Bush

[SpiralHawk]

5. "Ahriman will be mightily pleased. Sneer." - Dickie 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney

[Rockholm]

4. Heard it last night too.

It was in the paper last week. Very sad indeed.

[BayouBengal07]

6. White Nose Syndrome

Cocaine is a hell of a drug...

[fight4my3sons]

7. This is interesting because someone posted an article about it

before and it is happening right where I used to live. We had a lot of bats. They used to hang right under where our basement door was and we had to have someone come out and move them to a bat house because the droppings were a problem (we had an infant in the house at the time and didn't want to track bat poop all over the floor from our shoes).

Here is the link to the other post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2864916

[mmonk]

8. Is that the opposite of brown nose syndrome?

[cali]

9. I wish I could laugh about this

but it just makes me so damned sad. And scared.

[mmonk]

10. Without humor, things are worse.

This of course will upset biological and ecological balances. It will mean an increased insect population.

[El Pinko]

11. I think I know how they caught it...

[trotsky]

12. Not just sad.

Absolutely tragic for ourselves, our livestock, and our crops. Bats eat tremendous amounts of insects, most notably mosquitoes. And bees single-wingedly (?) are responsible for making sure almost all our fruit crops come in. We lose the bats and the bees, we've got huge problems.

[Virginia Dare]

13. This is potentially catastrophic as well as tragic..

with no bats to eat mosquitoes and other insects, diseases will increase and crops will decrease. This is a hell of a mess we're in right now.

[originalpckelly]

14. Psheah, fungus my ass, those bats are coke addicts!