Bat House Forum

[Joe Spencer]

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2352804/white_nose_syndrome_19_million_dollars.html?cat=3

[Dave Miller]

That is a mighty strange opinion piece. Sounds almost like it was given as a school assignment.

Their "facts" are also a bit off. I believe that scientists do not yet know if the fungus is a cause or a symptom. Also bats eat mainly beetles, flies and moths, not mosquitoes (but they will eat mosquitoes if there is nothing else to eat). Kind of like if you haven't eaten for two weeks and someone offers you a big cheeseburger or a french fry, which do you choose?

Bats also generally do not feed while hibernating, thus the statement "The fungus irritates the bats, interrupting their hibernation process. This in turn makes many bats too weak to hunt the amount of insects it takes to make them stay alive" is wrong. They do in fact wake up and attempt to feed but that is not normal behavior.

[cloudman75]

You have a sharp eye Dave. When the author of the referenced article copied the article from Chris of Gather.com, some words were left out. The article in Gather said in effect that the bats were irritated during their hibernation which interrupted their normal hibernation.
When they woke up from hibernation they were too weak to hunt enough food to survive . This appears more correct to me.
The young lady was not correct as you said although Gather .com which she was quoting did much better. You certainly can't believe everything you read on the net. I had not heard before that the fungus irritated bats during hibrnation, however I can't say it doesn't. I hope the alloted money will help to abate the problem of white nose syndrome. I agree also with you
about what bats don't eat unless nothing else good is available, but we don't let the potential batters know that until later. LOL.

Frank

[Joe Spencer]

Yes indeed when I first read this I knew the facts were off. The reason I posted it was the allocation of money toward helping which was the first I'd heard of being allocated to the cause. Not sure how far it will go but anything helps. Good followup guys...

[Dave Miller]

I guess I assumed everyone here gets "Bat Conservation Times" from BCI and had seen the announcement there: http://www.batcon.org/news2/scripts/art ... etterID=63

Personally I don't think $1.9M is going to be enough. This article states that at least $5M is needed: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news ... -2009.html