Re: Bat Maternity Season
[Re: HD_Wildlife]
#5059638
05/25/15 09:00 AM
05/25/15 09:00 AM
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,824 Lower Alabama (Daleville)
LAtrapper
"Professor"
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"Professor"
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,824
Lower Alabama (Daleville)
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My son has been seeing pups for about the past two weeks here in the southeast corner of Alabama.
Note to self- Engage brain before opening mouth (or hitting the ENTER key/SUBMIT button).
Ron Fry
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Re: Bat Maternity Season
[Re: HD_Wildlife]
#5059759
05/25/15 10:57 AM
05/25/15 10:57 AM
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 1,883 Northeast Wisconsin
NE Wildlife
trapper
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trapper
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 1,883
Northeast Wisconsin
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I was just watching a huge maternity colony In a house I bought in the UP. No pups yet, very Larg colony for around here. I would say 4-500 Bats. One of the main reasons I bought the house. Yes I'm weird I guess
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Re: Bat Maternity Season
[Re: HD_Wildlife]
#5060290
05/25/15 07:51 PM
05/25/15 07:51 PM
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 111 NM
HD_Wildlife
OP
trapper
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OP
trapper
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 111
NM
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Ron,
I am, the folks involved are from a variety of state, federal, non profit and university groups.
A good study showing some promise in the fight against white-nose syndrome (WNS).
One of the major hurdles in fighting this fungus that causes WNS is that in order to test treatments you must do so first in a lab with live bats.
That part is the norm for many wildlife diseases of course.
Then however comes the major issue of where do you test the treatment in the field?
Simply spraying anti-fungals in cave environments always seems and did to me incredibly logical, lets just kill the fungus and be done with it and start them on the road to recovery.
The problem is that the anti-fungal could kill beneficial fungus, other microorganisms and effect food and ecological chains within cave, mine and other natural environments.
Through the years as most know many things have been introduced to kill other things, the result is usually you have to try to then kill those things to rebalance a system that is now ruined.
Folks are very punchy about the ecological ramifications though everyone involved in this fight knows that field testing and real world trials have to be done soon as many areas are either devoid of certain species (little brown bat, tri colored bat, northern long-eared bat) or they are nearing being gone.
This isn't just confirmed with cave counts during winter, this is on the landscape acoustic monitoring where folks used to record bat calls as common and now thanks to this introduced fungus, they are gone or nearly gone.
Wouldn't be so bad if bats gave birth every month and raised 5-6 young each time, they would bounce right back, but the maternity season effort is limited to 1 to at most 3 pups with 1-2 being most common, once a year of course as we all know and thus recovering 6-7 million plus bats is a 30+ year estimated time frame if they don't completely become lost before the fight is over.
Some bats are showing hope, there are some reports of some returning each year, but we are talking handfuls compared to caves full.
Devastating and as a guy who 4 years ago didn't know a bat from his elbow biologically speaking, I and my wife have become invested in them and this issue as heavily as we can.
It is linked to more in nature than we all might guess, not just crop pest management but forest pest management, vector species (mosquitoes) management and so many food webs and chains that if they go, it will become a problem everyone will care about (or at least those with knowledge of the natural world).
More positive news in field trials is a good thing, but a long road to go and funding is still very very limited compared to other species that we support as a country.
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