About six years ago, biologists in New York State noticed that bats were missing in large numbers from the evening sky. Mystified at first, they soon discovered a disturbing trend. Deceased bats had a strange white fungus on their muzzles.
It was recently confirmed that this fungus – called white-nose syndrome – is the cause of the bat decline. Losses have been startling, with the Northeast the most severely impacted. More than 80% of our bats have died off.
Currently there is no cure. And white-nose syndrome is on the move. It has been reported in 16 states and four Canadian provinces. Wildlife biologists fear that it will lead to the extinction of bats in North America. What will life without bats mean?
We will have less concern about rabies, a viral infection that is spread by more dogs than bats. And we will have a lot more bugs. Bats eat about a third of their weight in insects each night. A single colony of big brown bats can eat 1.3 million insects each year.
This has the beneficial effect of controlling nuisance bugs, such as crop pests. The U.S. Geological survey estimates that crop damage caused by the loss of bats could cost U.S. farmers as much as $3.7 billion each year.
We can also expect more mosquito bites – which will increase our exposure to infectious diseases, such as West Nile Virus and encephalitis.
Bats, long misunderstood, perform roles that many of us simply take for granted.
Photo credit: taken October 31, 2008 using a Canon EOS 20D, courtesy of Microbe World via Flickr.