Posted on 07/13/2011 9:49:34 AM PDT by americanophile
(CBS News) The lightning-fast die-off of bats is being called the No. 1 crisis affecting mammals in this country. Scientists from more than 100 state and federal agencies are coordinating their efforts to learn why bats are dying.
CBS News Correspondent Betty Nguyen noted on "The Early Show" that one of the consequences of the bats' deaths is more bugs.
Wildlife officials now are pointing to a fungus they say is killing bats in unprecedented numbers.
It's a desperate situation with no solution in sight.
Nguyen reported bats often get a bad rap as creepy, blood-sucking night creatures. But farmers, like James Roby, actually count on them to eat 100,000 tons of crop-damaging bugs every year.
Roby showed Nguyen a chard leaf, badly damaged by a caterpillar or worm.
He explained, "(The damage) would have been potentially controlled by a bat that would have nailed the moth that would have laid the eggs on this leaf to begin with."
That's not happening because bats are in danger. A fast-spreading fungus has wiped out a million of them in 18 East Coast states.
Roby said of the chard crop, "It's inedible right now; it's just not marketable."
An ailment dubbed White-Nose Syndrome leaves the fungus on a bat's nose, wings and body, and that eventually leads to starvation. The die-off is so great - and so fast - the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife has declared bats the No. 1 mammal in crisis in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Where are you located? Also, those patio skeeter candles and the CO2 emitters work great around backyards and ponds.
LOL, I could not stop myself!!!!!
The realtor claimed he didn't know what they were, but the first night the family spent there, he figured out that they were to do battle with the bats that descended on, or woke up in, the abode.
That was in the 1970s.
They disappeared from my place, NCWV, in June also. Hawks, rabbits and snakes are about normal, but hummers are up a bunch.
They are definitely beneficial and worth having around.
I heard the die-off was due to a fungus that doesn’t let them hibernate properly and they starve to death in the winter because they can’t stay asleep.
Guess you don't listen to the show formerly known as Art Bell.
Ever since they bought him out, and hired moonbats for producers, the show's not been worth listening to with any regularity.
if i wanted to attack a country and didn’t have a large military... i would have to look for a low tech solution. something my enemy wouldn’t even know is coming until it was too late
just sayin’...
>>> Roby showed Nguyen a chard leaf, badly damaged by a caterpillar or worm.
I am sure Roby has more proof that bats are dying off because of some fungus. Showing off a leaf with worm holes is not proof for the claim.
It could be anything from environmentalists/EPA not allow the use of pesiticides/fungicides. In fact the EPA ban on fungicides, hence fungus infestation could very well be the cause of bats dying off.
b
They should come to my house. We have bees living in the outer wall of our dining room (hive got so large, it split and half flew away) and bats that WERE living in our attic for several years and now moved to the abandoned house next door. No problem with bees and bats dying around here!
We enjoy watching the bats swoop after the bugs too. :-) They come out as the sun is setting. Very cool to watch!
Coast-to-Coast AM has some good points. I’ve heard the number one host, George Noory, defend the Second Amendment on numerous occassions. Noory frequently has John Lott (”More Guns, Less Crime”) on the show as a guest, too.
I see no decline in the bat population in my neighborhood in northeast Texas even with a severe drought and few mosquitoes, which have plenty of water to breed from the sprinklers in the shady spots.
Western MD.
They’d have to be *awfully* big skeeter repellents....:D
I don’t know where to begin but there is certainly an opportunity here to use a picture of Nancy Pelosi.....hmmm, I didn’t know she was a mammal.
Amazing animals, I am assuming it used it's sonar to determine the confines of the cage and the distance between the bars, judging it to be ok for him to make it if it's wings were folded.
That's a lot of bats.
But, for farmers, it might be a little too late.
Nguyen asked Roby, “How much time do you have?”
He replied, “(We have) very little time. Less than a year.”
“And then what happens?” Nguyen asked.
“It spreads out West and we lose millions and millions of bats,” he said.
Exactly correct. A study done recently showed that the huge wind turbines in West Texas were littered with the corpses of millions of bats. They found the air pressure from their blades passing nearby would literally rupture the bats lungs.
http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/Magazine/Article.aspx?ArticleId=468
Funny that the enviro-nazis would never let such findings see the light of day...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.