Wildlife

Bat Populations Decimated Across North America

White-nose syndrome, a fungal disease possibly imported from Europe on the boots of spelunkers (cave explorers), hits bats at their winter hibernation roosts. It was first identified in North America in New York in 2006/2007 and has since spread to 22 states and five Canadian provinces. White Nose Syndrome has decimated bat populations with mortality rates reaching 100 percent at some sites. In the northeastern United States, bat numbers have plummeted by at least 80 percent, says the USGS, with ~6.7 million bats killed continent wide. The Centre for Biological Diversity reports that biologists consider this the worst wildlife disease outbreak ever in North America.

Bats are supremely important for farming and for food security. They eat thousands of tons of insects, including crop pests, every year.

Researchers estimate the economic value of bug-eating bats to American agriculture at $22 billion, maybe as much as $53 billion a year. Yet federal funding for White Nose Syndrome research and disease response coordination has been scarce the past several years and is likely to become even scarcer in the 2013 and 2014 federal budgets.