 |
| Wildlife biologists Ryan Smith and Joel Flewelling examine a dead bat in an abandoned mine in Bethel on Monday, Feb. 21, 2011. They failed to find any living bats in the mine, which has been infected with white nose syndrome, a fungus blamed for killing a million bats in the Northeast |
State wildlife biologists Ryan Smith and Joel Flewelling and I don roomy Tyvek suits and chest waders. We slide into the mine and begin wading down a narrow tunnel in water that rises from our ankles to our calves.
It’s warm in here, so warm that our headlamps spotlight flitting mosquitoes and a daddy-longlegs moving slowly on the wall.
Nearby, Flewelling’s light illuminates a mummified bat, its tiny bones like toothpicks. Then, in the water underfoot we see small blobs of gray: the dead bodies of other bats. We try not to step on them, but it is hard to tell with all the water sloshing around.
The biologists have come here as part of ongoing survey of Vermont caves where tens of thousands of bats once spent the winter. Since 2008, their numbers have been decimated by white-nose syndrome — a cold-loving fungus that kills the bats in ways scientists still are trying to understand.
White-nose syndrome has wiped out bats with frightening speed. In 2008, the little brown bat was one of the commonest bats in the Northeast. In 2011, Vermont added the bat to the endangered species list, along with the northern long-eared and tri-colored bats.
Biologists surveyed this abandoned mine in December 2009 and counted 67 bats: 40 little browns, 21 northern long-eared, 6 tri-colored.
We keep wading until the tunnel ends about 150 feet from the entrance. We have seen not a single living bat. Smith is a scientist, but he responds viscerally.
“This sucks,” he says.
****
July 21, 2011:
At 8:20 p.m., the air outside an old barn at Sandbar Wildlife Management Area remains hot as an oven. The sky is a strange white-gray color.
We are counting little brown bats again. Wildlife biologist Scott Darling, his assistant, Alyssa Bennett, and I have our eyes glued to long, narrow bat boxes nailed to the side of the barn. Just as night falls, the bats in this maternal summer colony should emerge to begin devouring (I hope) the cloud of mosquitoes in which we are standing.
8:30, no bats. 8:45, no bats. I begin to think this colony will be as empty as the winter cave. In 2005, before white-nose syndrome, a survey found 450 mothers and pups crowded into the attic and bat boxes here. When I assisted with the count in 2009, their numbers were down to about 130.
At 8:50 p.m., the first bat drops out of the bottom of a bat box. We can’t see them clearly in the dying light, but the eye catches movement and a darting shape. The bats drop down nearly to the grass before swooping around the building’s corner.
When the exodus ends about 15 minutes later, Darling shines his flashlight into the row of bat boxes. Most now are occupied by wasps and bees.
Nevertheless, the 58 bats we count amount to good news in a time of apocalypse.
“The fact is, they are reproducing,” Darling will say later of this colony. “We didn’t experience a 90 percent decline with this colony.”
The survival of the Sandbar colony suggests that some bats may be resistant to white-nose syndrome, one of the first glimmers of hope since the epidemic began.
“Three years beyond the onset of white-nose there are still some animals out there. Why that is — that’s just a compelling question that needs to be answered,” Darling says.
*****
July 29, 2011:
Bennett drives into the dooryard of an 1850 brick farmhouse in East Montpelier. She’s answering a call from homeowner Elaine Manghi, who has found a dead bat.
.jpg)
This is part of Bennett’s job in the summer of 2011: outreach to homeowners who have — or had — bat colonies in their attics and barns. The state Fish and Wildlife Department is trying to understand the distribution of little brown and other bats, and is seeking further evidence of bats showing resistance to white-nose syndrome.
Manghi leads us to a back deck fringed with phlox and dahlias.
“Over the years, we’d see them as we sat out here in the evening,” she says, tears filling her eyes as she recalls summer nights of wildlife watching with her late husband, Paul. “I wish I had been more curious about them.”Streaks of bat guano show on the red bricks of the home’s back wall. Bennett peers up at a gap between the wall and trim just below the roof. Bats can hide in tiny spaces, she says, less than half an inch.
Word of white-nose syndrome has penetrated the public consciousness. Manghi is one a dozens of Vermonters who have called Fish and Wildlife with questions or reports about living and dead bats.
Manghi retrieves the dead bat, wrapped in plastic, from her freezer, as well as the remains of what she believes are baby bats. The “babies” turn out to be the carcasses of baby voles or mice, but Bennett will take the adult bat back to the lab for a positive identification.
Since the state added the bat species to its endangered list, killing them is generally illegal, although homeowners may kill up to four bats found inside a house. (Information on removing bats, and the best way to keep them out of your home can be found at http://bit.ly/uXcolS.)
By summer’s end, Bennett will have received good reports, often with photographs, from 100 places in Vermont, and she will substantiate the presence of 14 little-brown-bat colonies, another potentially hopeful sign.
Manghi said she hopes her own report will help. “We love all wildlife,” she says.
When the exodus ends about 15 minutes later, Darling shines his flashlight into the row of bat boxes. Most now are occupied by wasps and bees.
Nevertheless, the 58 bats we count amount to good news in a time of apocalypse.
“The fact is, they are reproducing,” Darling will say later of this colony. “We didn’t experience a 90 percent decline with this colony.”
The survival of the Sandbar colony suggests that some bats may be resistant to white-nose syndrome, one of the first glimmers of hope since the epidemic began.
“Three years beyond the onset of white-nose there are still some animals out there. Why that is — that’s just a compelling question that needs to be answered,” Darling says.
*****
July 29, 2011:
Bennett drives into the dooryard of an 1850 brick farmhouse in East Montpelier. She’s answering a call from homeowner Elaine Manghi, who has found a dead bat.
.jpg)
Manghi leads us to a back deck fringed with phlox and dahlias.
“Over the years, we’d see them as we sat out here in the evening,” she says, tears filling her eyes as she recalls summer nights of wildlife watching with her late husband, Paul. “I wish I had been more curious about them.”Streaks of bat guano show on the red bricks of the home’s back wall. Bennett peers up at a gap between the wall and trim just below the roof. Bats can hide in tiny spaces, she says, less than half an inch.
Word of white-nose syndrome has penetrated the public consciousness. Manghi is one a dozens of Vermonters who have called Fish and Wildlife with questions or reports about living and dead bats.
Manghi retrieves the dead bat, wrapped in plastic, from her freezer, as well as the remains of what she believes are baby bats. The “babies” turn out to be the carcasses of baby voles or mice, but Bennett will take the adult bat back to the lab for a positive identification.
Since the state added the bat species to its endangered list, killing them is generally illegal, although homeowners may kill up to four bats found inside a house. (Information on removing bats, and the best way to keep them out of your home can be found at http://bit.ly/uXcolS.)
By summer’s end, Bennett will have received good reports, often with photographs, from 100 places in Vermont, and she will substantiate the presence of 14 little-brown-bat colonies, another potentially hopeful sign.
Manghi said she hopes her own report will help. “We love all wildlife,” she says.