EARTH
Dead bats liter the floor of Aeolus Cave near Manchester, Vt. PHOTO/Alan Hicks
These are dark days for bats. Hundreds of thousands of tiny white-nosed bats have died over the past few winters, falling to cave floors across the eastern United States. The killer is White Nose Syndrome, a mysterious disease inflicted by an unusual cold-loving fungus that attacks bats while they are hibernating. Come spring, as few as 5 percent of the bats in heavily infected roosts are still alive.
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Bats are one of nature’s great success stories. More than 1,100 species populate the planet, accounting for 20 percent of all classified mammal species. The majority of bats hunt insects at night, using a sophisticated form of echolocation. They have virtually no predators and until recently, appeared remarkably disease-resistant, with some bats living for 20 years or more.
Then in February 2007, Alan Hicks, a wildlife specialist with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, based in Albany, received an unsettling phone call. Colleagues conducting a routine bat survey in nearby Hailes Cave had found so many dead bats that they couldn’t take a step without hearing bones crunch underfoot.
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