The Boston Globe reports a disturbing story about how bats are dying by the thousands in the Northeast. Scientists know little about the cause or even the size of the problem:
A mysterious illness is sickening and killing thousands of
hibernating bats in New York and Vermont, baffling scientists who fear
that tens of thousands more may be dying in abandoned mines and dark
caves throughout the Northeast.
Humans
are not believed to be at risk from the disease, but the death of large
numbers of bats could indirectly affect New Englanders: Bats devour
crop pests, midges and mosquitoes.
"I've studied bats for
40-something years, and I've never seen anything like this; it's
alarming," said Thomas Kunz, a preeminent bat researcher at Boston
University. "It's frustrating and perplexing, because we don't know
what it is and we don't know how to control it."
The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service warned the public in the last week to keep out of
caves and mines in New York and Vermont because humans might be
inadvertently spreading the unknown pathogen. The National
Speleological Society has closed all caves it owns in New York and
Pennsylvania, and other caving organizations have urged people to avoid
places where bats may hibernate in the Northeast.
