Most of the little brown bats in this photo are dead from white-nose syndrome. This Lackawanna County, Pa., mine is one of many sites in the United States and Canada contaminated with the disease. Credit: Gregory Turner, Pennsylvania Game Commission.
13 comments:
I thought that bat's slept from the ceiling so how could a fungus get to them. Fungus's probably need soil to live so how could they live in a rock cave?
That is interesting and sad. It's amazing how the domino affect can cause so much! I hope it's not something humans can catch like the swine flu. Also the name of the illness is so straight forward compared to other scientific names that i've heard. It would be terrible if the only flying mammal were to become endangered or extinct. I hope they stop this terrible epidemic from spreading too much.
This was really interesting. The sad thing is people don't realize what bats do for the world, like eating insects. I agree with you, Caroline, I hope it is not something that people can catch, because it sounds like it is pretty contagious. I would like to see if they can develop something that only kills the white nose disease, not everything in the cave that the bats need to survive.
I think that this article is very interesting, but sad. The poor bats. I hope that they don't go extinct. I wonder if any other animal can get White Nose Syndrome, but I hope not. I think that if any other animals can get White Nose Syndrome, that they would have to be other hibernating animals, because they said that it only happens to the bats when they are hibernating and their immune systems are down. I wonder what makes the fungi cause White Nose Syndrome. I hope that scientists develop a way to kill White Nose Syndrome, but not the other fungi.
I agree with you Cypress, people don't realize what bats do for the world. People don't realize what many creatures do for the world, they just think all of those types of creatures are gross. It sounds like such a terrible disease. It's really sad, but I hope people will try to save these poor creatures.
They wouldn't be extinct as said in the article. It said that the fungi didn't give the infection to bats of the SAME kind in the eastern hemisphere and there has been no report of it there.
It's so sad that so many bats are dying, and It's all our fault! Plus, we're going to be affected because of it too! Bats eat all of the moths and other bugs that are pests to crops, so our farms and other agricultural aspects will need to use more pesticides to keep the bugs away, which will in turn lead to an increase of air and water pollution. So we hurt the bats, they stopped eating insects, and we're forced to start relying more on pesticides and other harmful chemicals to kill all the bugs!
I think it is interesting how the disease spread among the bats so quickly. I think it might be because the flying animal flew to other caves and carried the disease.
I think this is a very interesting article because I didn't know there was such thing as White Nose Syndrome. I would have never guessed that it was actually a fungus. I didn't know that it would kill bats even if it did infect them.
I also learned something new from this article. I had no idea bats were dying from White Nose Syndrome. It's really sad that so many bats died from this. I also hope that the only flying mammal doesn't become on the Endangered Species list.
I personally have no idea how they got the disease, but the point is they have. Instead of talking about how sad it is(not to say it's not sad) or how it COULD spread to humans, I would rather take action. For example, we could try to contain the bats that already have it. It's better to just let some bats die and the rest of them live than have all the bats die with us making an attempt to stop the disease(the chances of us stopping the disease is small).
I found this article very interesting. But its is so sad that these bats are dying from this disease. I never knew there was a disease called White Nose Syndrome, and I would of never guessed it was a fungus.
I think that it's awful what is happening to the bats! I wonder how many species of bats it has spread to. How does it kill the bats? In the article it said that the white fuzz was on their eyes, ears, and noses, so maybe it suffocates them? It might also just use the openings to get into the body and infect the body. I wonder how they can kill the disease? If humans can catch it, it might have the same effect on us. If it does spread to humans, this disease might have the same results as the smallpox epidemic! This article really made me think about how the bats might influence daily life, if the bats become extinct due to this (hopefully not!)
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