Friends, it’s sad news for our local bats. I received an email update from Bat Conservation International (BCI) last week and I wanted to share it along with some links with you here.
When I first moved to Loudoun, we had bats flying through our yard every summer night. I bought a bat detector so I could hear their echolocation and it was marvelous! Now when I go outside to listen for the bats it’s radio silence – reminiscent of the folks trying to search for life on other planets, listening to nothing more than the hiss of the atmosphere.
I hope we’ll see the return of the bats in our lifetime. Here’s the information from BCI:
“As Bat Conservation International continues our fight against White-nose Syndrome, research being published in the journal Science predicts the outcome we feared: regional extinctions.
The study forecasts that the little brown myotis, until now one of our most common species and one that is often seen roosting in barns, old buildings and attics, could be reduced to barely 1 percent of its current population in northeastern states within two decades.”
Learn more about bats, white nose syndrome and what you can do to help our bats:
Latest news: http://batcon.org/index.php/what-we-do/white-nose-syndrome.html
BCI email newsletter: http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/e-newsletter.html
BCI Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bat-Conservation-International/144437204518?ref=ts
Spread the news about the bats so more people are aware of what is happening and what we are losing. If you encounter people looking to exclude bats from buildings, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy has developed some resources that can help both educate people on the situation and enable them to act humanely. BCI and Bat World are also fantastic resources. In times like these, we need to do everything we can to help bats, and part of that is learning to live with and appreciate them.