Bat House Forum

[Terry Lobdell]

Joe, I am probably a couple hundred miles from wns sites in PA. So far this year my little browns have been late returning but that has been due to a cold snap recently. Just yesterday, 4/18/09, I found the first little brown guano. And last night was the first night warm enough for my big browns to feed enough to drop a sizeble amount of guano. My little browns are usually all back by May 15th so my fingers are crossed that I'll have the same number or more than last year. My little brown colony here at home has been growing by about 5% a year.

That is an interesting question about ventilation preferences between little and big browns. One thing I have noticed for sure is my big browns end up roosting in some strange places during periods of high humidity. Even if the temperature is mild, they will still roost behind in my back vent/access boxes if it is humid. I also find them roosting behind an east facing brown downspout often during muggy weather.

[Joe Spencer]

Interesting Terry! I haven't had enough bats or houses at my home to observe anything about humidity and bats responding to it during the foraging season. Thank you....

[Dave Miller]

I recently got this action alert regarding WNS: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/21 ... _KEY=27148

They are asking for you to contact your elected officials in Congress to take action on WNS.

[Joe Spencer]

Dave, I just submitted the form and sent the link to some friends. I gave bat house presentation Wed. night for a bird nature club and they were well aware of WNS. When I told them of the urgency that we could lose half of our bats in the coming months and asked how they would feel about losing half the birds in North AMerica, it really hit home with the audience.

[Dave Miller]

Well a tiny step forward has been made in combatting WNS:

For Immediate Release, September 23, 2009

Contact: Mollie Matteson, Center for Biological Diversity, (802) 434-2388 (office), (802) 318-1487 (cell)

Government Announces Plan to Respond to White-nose Syndrome, Try to Stave Off Bat Catastrophe

RICHMOND, Vt.— In response to calls from the Center for Biological Diversity, dozens of other conservation organizations, scientists, and members of Congress, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has drafted a plan to respond to white-nose syndrome, a disease that has been killing millions of bats in the eastern United States over the past three winters. Earlier this month, the Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter to the agency’s director, pleading for faster, more coordinated action on the die-off, which scientists believe could cause the extinction of several bat species within a few years.

White-nose syndrome has wiped out an estimated 1.5 million bats and reduced populations of bats in some areas by 90 to 100 percent. It has rapidly spread from the Albany, New York area, where it first appeared in caves in the winter of 2006-07, to a total of nine states from New Hampshire to West Virginia. It is expected to show up in bat caves this winter in Kentucky, Tennessee, and other midwestern and southern states, and biologists think it may reach the West Coast within two to three years.

“White-nose syndrome is like a house on fire,” said Mollie Matteson, a wildlife biologist and conservation advocate in the Center for Biological Diversity’s Northeast office. “People have been throwing buckets of water on it, and calling 911, but it’s taken a long time for the fire trucks to get there. We’re grateful, but we hope it’s not too late.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s recently released plan, available on its white-nose syndrome web page, is only a draft framework at this point. Agency officials said last week that they hope to finalize the plan by late fall, before white-nose syndrome starts showing up in new bat sites this winter.

One of the purposes of the plan is to provide state wildlife agencies with guidance on how to respond to white-nose syndrome, if it should appear in their state. Research, containment, and monitoring for the disease, along with measures for recovery of stricken bat species, will be addressed in the final plan, according to the current outline.

The Center and other groups have been calling for more coordinated action on white-nose syndrome for months. In April, the Center, along with Defenders of Wildlife, sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking for the appointment of a full-time white-nose syndrome coordinator, the development of a plan, and increased funding. In May, the Center was joined by 60 other groups and scientists in a letter to Congress, which drew attention to the bat crisis and called for urgent action.

The response to the swiftly spreading bat illness has been hampered by lack of resources and coordination among the growing number of state and federal agencies, research institutions, cave owners and managers, and others pulled into the crisis. Common myths and prejudices about bats have also posed a challenge for those advocating for faster action. But bats provide vital services to humans by eating enormous quantities of insects, and keeping potentially troublesome insect pests in check. In some parts of the country, bats play an important role in pollination.

This spring and summer, concerned members of Congress did host three hearings on the syndrome, but the House did not approve any additional funding for it, and the Senate appropriated only $500,000 for monitoring. Biologists outside the Fish and Wildlife Service have stated that a minimum of $5 million was needed just to address the current extent of the crisis, and more would be needed as the illness spread.

Said Matteson: “Getting a plan written is an enormous step forward. Next it has to be implemented, and it needs money. Otherwise, it’ll just be a way to pass time as the bats disappear.”

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news ... -2009.html

And from the BCI Newsletter (http://www.batcon.org/news2/scripts/art ... etterID=62):

This coming winter almost certainly will see White-nose Syndrome increasing its devastation among hibernating bats and spreading into still more states beyond the American Northeast. Now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is presenting its draft framework for a plan to coordinate and manage the national response to this disastrous disease.

The framework, which outlines key priorities, actions and goals for a national plan, was prepared in coordination with U.S. Geological Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and state agencies. Other agencies, states, organizations and scientists will help develop the final plan, which, the FWS said, should be available for public review this winter.

Several scientists, including BCI President Emeritus Merlin Tuttle, testified before two congressional subcommittees in June that a coordinated federal strategy and leadership role were essential to dealing with this urgent wildlife crisis.

Since WNS was discovered in cave in New York State in February 2006, it has killed more than a million bats. The FWS reports that the population of endangered Indiana myotis in its northeast region has fallen about 30 percent since 2007. Mortality approaching 100 percent has been reported at some major hibernation sites.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has worked passionately towards a solution to White-nose Syndrome for the past several years,” said Mylea Bayless, BCI WNS Coordinator. “Unfortunately, we expect WNS to move into the American South and Midwest in the coming years, so we are pleased to see an emerging national approach to addressing this crisis. This framework provides a good roadmap for that approach. The challenge now is funding its implementation.”

And time is running out.

“As WNS spreads, the challenges for managing the disease continue to increase,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said in its draft, which “details the elements that are critical to the investigation and management of WNS.”

Among other things, the framework calls for developing a centralized and accessible system for making WNS research, data and analyses quickly available to those involved in the WNS effort. It would provide uniform standards for data collection, interpretation and dissemination.

The document notes the need for a reliable, rapid and standardized diagnosis of WNS in individual bats and in populations. Mitigation will require the ability to “maintain existing WNS-free zones and WNS-free sites within the infected zone.” A key goal is to minimize disease impacts enough “to allow the future restoration of all species to their geographic and genetic abundance.”

The framework says the purpose of the research component “is to identify and prioritize critical research needs in areas such as disease causality, transmissibility, live-animal tests, bioassays, genotyping and population monitoring, and to assess surveillance and management-action plans.”

The FWS hopes to develop consensus standards for safe and effective surveillance efforts to identify risk factors and improve early detection and support prioritized conservation actions.

The draft framework can be viewed at the Fish and Wildlife Service’s northeast region website: http://www.fws.gov/northeast/white_nose.html

If anyone here has any WNS-related data (e.g. bat house occupancy numbers in WNS-affected areas, WNS-afflicted bats) I think we should offer it to the effort. I think the best way would be to click on the "Report Unusual Bat Behavior or Deaths" link at the right side of the FWS WNS page: http://www.fws.gov/northeast/white_nose.html