Lil’ Drac, the orphaned short-tailed fruit bat, is growing up quickly! He now eats solid foods and knows how to fly. You can follow Lil’ Drac’s progress here, or you can adopt a bat from the Bat World Sanctuary.
Image: Little brown bat with white-nose syndrome
A fungus is threatening to wipe out certain species of North American bats. According to Mylea Bayless of Bat Conservation International, “‘We’re watching a potential extinction event on the order of what we experienced with bison and passenger pigeons for this group of mammals.‘” The problem is severe, because “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists and
[their] partners estimate that at least 5.7 million to 6.7 million bats have now died from white-nose syndrome.” Apparently, the fungus kills the bats by aggravating colonies, which should be hibernating, during the winter months, and the aggravation causes these colonies to burn up too much energy. Bats can’t normally feed during the cold winter months, so they perish after burning up all their energy stores.
Bats provide an important ecosystem service by consuming insects “that feed on agricultural crops and forests. For example, “a reproductive female consumes her weight in bugs each night[, and] in a single summer, a colony of 150 brown bats can eat enough adult cucumber beetles to prevent the laying of eggs that result in 33 million rootworm larvae … .” The fungus, which causes the disease, Geomyces destructans, “originated in Europe, where some bats acquired immunity, and was somehow transmitted to bats in North America which lack any immunity to the disease[, so] … some officials … argue that humans may also transmit WNS from infected sites to clean sites, probably on clothing and equipment.” More via Scientific American:
[E]xperiments show that bats are quite effective at spreading the destructive fungal disease to their neighbors. “Bats are very good agents of transmission of the disease,” Chaturvedi says. And that—plus the European analysis—may suggest that G. destructans is an invasive species, according to Blehert, which possibly traveled to the U.S. on a European who visited a public cavern in New York State. WNS was first observed in a wild cave connected to that commercial cave complex near Albany, N.Y. Chaturvedi’s work has shown that G. destructans in North America is genetically similar wherever it is found.
Video: Economic effects of White Nose Syndrome
Video: Declining Bat Population (from September 7, 2009)
On the Net:
Here’s an adorable video of an orphaned short-tailed fruit bat, affectionately named Lil’ Drac, that’s being hand-raised at the Bat World Sanctuary:
Why was Lil’ Drac abandoned by his mother?
Lil’ Drac is an orphaned short tailed fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata). His mother was yet another casualty from zoo closures which are occurring across the US. Sheis a young mother who was stressed from the conditions in which she was kept, combined with the additional trauma of being captured and transferred to a new and unfamiliar environment. Consequently, she abandoned Lil’ Drac after he was born. He was found on the padded floor of the indoor flight enclosure at Bat World Sanctuary, curled up in a little ball.
You can keep up with Lil’ Drac’s progress here, and you can sponsor a bat in need here.
Hat tip to Kevin.
A voluntary caving moratorium is being issued to protect bats by preventing the spread of a deadly fungal disease that causes white-nose syndrome in bats. From the Straits Times:
US officials are asking people to stay out of caves in states from West Virginia to New England, where as many as 500,000 bats have died from a disease known as ‘white-nose syndrome’.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service made the request to guard against the possibility that people are unwittingly spreading the mysterious affliction when they explore multiple caves. There is no evidence that white nose is a threat to people.
Named for the sugary smudges of fungus on the noses and wings of hibernating bats, white-nose bats appear to run through their winter fat stores before spring.
It was confirmed in eight states this winter from New Hampshire to West Virginia and there is evidence it may have spread to Virginia, according to wildlife service spokeswoman Diana Weaver. Some death-count estimates run as high as 500,000 bats.
Researchers worry about a mass die-off of bats, which help control the populations of insects that can damage wheat, apples and dozens of other crops.
The advisory seeking a voluntary caving moratorium also would cover states adjacent to affected states – a swath of the United States stretching from Maine down to North Carolina and west to Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio, Weaver said.
The iconic Natterjack toads (Epidalea calamita), which are “native to sandy and heathland areas of Northern Europe,” have been exposed to the chytrid fungus. From Scotland on Sunday:
Government scientists have found traces of chytrid fungus in Natterjack Toads along both the northern and southern shores of the Solway Firth, where populations have steeply declined in the past two years.
They are now calling for increased biosecurity measures around amphibian habitats to prevent other populations of frogs, toads and newts in Scotland succumbing to the disease.
Chytrid disease is caused by a fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) that infects the skin tissues of amphibians. It has already caused catastrophic declines and extinctions across Australia and the Americas.
. . .
SNH is now considering stricter biosecurity measures – such as disinfecting footwear and equipment – for people who come into contact with the toads. “We want to stop it from spreading to other species such as frogs, other toads and newts, which might be affected,” Thompson said.
The Natterjack Toad is one of only three amphibians protected under the UK’s national Biodiversity Action Plan. Numbers are already in decline through loss of habitat, and the effects of pollution.
The mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) has been exposed to the chytrid fungus as well. From RedOrbit:
The “mountain chicken frog” of the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat is the latest victim of a lethal fungal disease that is devastating amphibian populations throughout the world.
British researchers say that just two small pockets of mountain chicken frogs (Leptodactylus fallax) are all that remain disease-free on the entire island. Conservationists are working to take the surviving frogs, some of the world’s largest, into captive breeding programs.
Experts believe the chytrid fungus entered Montserrat on small frogs stowing away in consignments of produce from Dominica.
. . .
Events on Montserrat now appear to be repeating what occurred on Dominica in 2002, when 80 percent of the island’s mountain chicken frogs were devastated within 15 months of the fungus arriving.
The fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis), first identified over ten years ago, has spread through hundreds of amphibian species throughout the world. It some species, extinction results in a matter of months, while others are seemingly immune.
“We still don’t know how chytrid kills frogs, and there’s some very basic stuff about the biology of the fungus that we need to understand,” said Andrew Cunningham from the Zoological Society of London, in an interview with BBC News.
“We’ve known about it for 10 years, but so little money has been spent on it.
“If this was killing mammals or birds in the same way it’s killing amphibians, millions and millions would have been spent on it.”
Chemicals can be used to rid amphibians of the fungus in captivity, but there is currently no way to cure them in the wild, or to eradicate infected water bodies. Because of this, conservation groups are working towards establishing captive populations.
On the Net:
The map showing counties in the northeast and mid-Atlantic where white-nose syndrome has been found is courtesy of Cal Butchkoski, Pennsylvania Game Commission. The image showing bats with white-nose syndrome was found here. The Natterjack toad image is by Piet Spaans. The Leptodactylus fallax image was found here.
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The federal government is the largest landowner in the United States. As a result, there are responsibilities that come with this ownership. One responsibility is endangered species conservation. From FayObserver.com, NC:
Fort Bragg officials have learned their endangered species lesson over the past couple of decades. In 1991, the commander had to close the post’s most heavily used range to protect the red-cockaded woodpecker.
So Patten and other scientists working at Fort Bragg and Camp Mackall — a nearby training ground for special operations troops — are learning what they can about the bats in hopes of keeping them off endangered status.
Since 2003, Fort Bragg has been documenting its bat population to see what species are there and how rare they are.
“It’s general stewardship,” Patten said. “It’s also a requirement for federal properties to inventory and monitor rare species.”
Studies indicate that Fort Bragg has 10 species of insect-eating bats. None is on the list of threatened or endangered species that require stringent protection. But two species on Fort Bragg are considered rare or “of concern” by state and federal wildlife officials. They are Rafinesque’s big-eared bat and the southeastern bat. Although not subject to protection, a “rare” species could be on its way to becoming a bigger issue.
Conservation groups have been paying a lot of attention to the “Rafs” and southeastern bats, said Piper Roby, a biologist and environmental consultant who is studying them for Fort Bragg.
“If we can get enough information on them and learn what they need and learn how to preserve them, their numbers will go up, and they won’t have to go on the endangered species list,” she said. “Bragg is helping us do that.”
. . .
At Fort Bragg, officials have had to learn how to work around two endangered species of animals — the red-cockaded woodpecker and the St. Francis’ satyr butterfly — and three endangered plants — rough-leafed loosestrife, Michaux’s sumac and American chaffseed.
Each brings restrictions on how the military can use the post for training. For instance, two white bands mark every nesting tree for the woodpeckers. Activity is curtailed within 200 feet of each of those trees. There are about 400 family groups of woodpeckers on the post.
Fort Bragg’s work to protect and nurture the red-cockaded woodpeckers has been so successful that the post was recognized by the Nature Conservancy in 2006 for restoring the population to desired levels five years ahead of schedule.
The endangered species on Fort Bragg thrive in the vanishing longleaf pine forests where frequent fires remove plants that can house predators or compete for light, water and nutrients. Fort Bragg has regular controlled burns to preserve the habitat.
Coping with endangered species is a fact of life for military installations throughout the United States.
N.C. National Guard soldiers found out about the Mojave Desert tortoise, a federally protected endangered species, when they visited the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., in 2003 while preparing for a deployment to Iraq. A Fort Irwin captain briefed the visitors from North Carolina with an extra sprinkling of profanity to emphasize the need to avoid harming the reptile.
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Photo source for attribution. The author or licensor of this image does not endorse my work or me and their image is protected under an attribution license.
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