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Index of Subjects Despite the plaudits so far, I'd extend Jim's polite comments further to say that we take the C-H paper version at home, and found the C-H bat article in it to be singularly uninformative -- it didn't even contain info on who to contact if you had the requested bat sightings. These occasional nature pieces for the C-H are a great idea, but the surprise in this case is that the consortium of writers that produce them (which includes David P) didn't get the local person who actually works on bats and therefore knows something about them, to write the article - Hugh Broders of SMU. I didn't catch the Andrew Hebda interview so the following may be superfluous, but what I've picked up just from a couple of local talks here is that the fungus is genetically identically or almost so to the European strain. This implies that it was imported somehow from there (on some tourist's or researcher's boots?) and tracked into the single cave in NY State where the outbreak is known to have started, and from which it has since radiated outwards quickly. Bats (or some of them) don't return to the same roosting site but often disperse to different roosts each morning. This spreads the fungus widely to infect those in other roosts. That occurs by direct contact between bats -- uninfected bats kept in cages right next to infected ones don't catch it, meaning that it does not usually behave as an airborne pathogen. The fungus in Europe seems to have little current effect on the bats there, which from general host-parasite studies is thought to imply that the association between the two has been long-term, so the host bats have eventually become largely immune to the pathogen. Whether 'long-term' means a few tens of years or 'since the last ice age' is unclear, but the jump of one now-less-potent malarial parasite from birds to humans has been placed way back, at an estimated ~12,000 years if memory serves correctly. What's unclear to me but someone here will have the answer, is whether the disappearing NE American/Canadian bats are the same species (or subspecies whatever that means) that occur in Europe. If so, perhaps thought is being given to trying to import some individuals of the counterpart species, that presumably have immunity to the fungus and so might help to regenerate the local species here? Steve (Halifax) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Quoting "James W. Wolford" <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>: >> Subject: [ValleyNature] re bats endangered -- good for other insectivores?? >> >> Today on CBC Radio News, Andrew Hebda said it might not be long >> before our little brown bat is extinct, considering the precipitous >> decline over the past two winters in the hibernacula. Thus Andrew >> was predicting that, without their night-time enemies, mosquitoes >> are liable to get much more abundant and troublesome for us than >> usual. >> >> But I wonder if this general insect abundance might actually help >> our troubled aerial insectivores a bit (swifts, swallows, >> nighthawks, flycatchers, others?)? >> >> Hugh or Mark or Andrew or Fred or Don, Mark's great article in >> Saturday's NovaScotian section (Herald) left out any information on >> the history of the fungus (Geomyces destructans) and the bat >> populations in Europe. Is much known about how the bats fared then >> and, if they declined hugely like ours, how long it took them to >> creep back into present abundance. I think I have heard or read >> that the same fungus now doesn't seem to be affecting the bats much >> or at all in the Old World. >> >> Cheers from Jim in Wolfville.
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