Erratic bat behavior at Great Smoky park may be linked to lethal syndrome

[farminator3000]

oh, fuck me. this sucks!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/erratic-bat-behavior-at-great-smoky-park-may-be-linked-to-lethal-syndrome/2013/01/20/1be8fc8e-60d1-11e2-b05a-605528f6b712_story.html

“We’re watching a potential extinction event on the order of what we experienced with bison and passenger pigeons for this group of mammals,” she said.



i blame monsanto, of course. bats eat bugs. bugs eat GMOs.

batshit is more valuable than big M.

[loudsue]

1. Oh man. That so sucks. This is the first I've seen of that,

How much more of this unregulated chemical shit can the world handle??

[GeorgeGist]

2. 275 million visitors per year?

Batshit!

[Heidi]

3. Kick!

[cali]

4. I despise Monsanto but in all the years that I've been following this dreadful story

I've seen nothing whatsoever to link it to gmos or Monsanto. Now maybe it is linked, but forgive me for actually wanting to scientific evidence. Blaming something because you hate it is not scientific evidence.

[farminator3000]

7. i fully realize that, but i'm going with my gut, the science will have to catch up

Bats are especially vulnerable to chemical pollution. They’re small — the little brown bat weighs just 8 grams — and can live for up to three decades. “That’s lots of time to accumulate pesticides and contaminants,” points out Boston University bat researcher and Ph.D. candidate Marianne Moore, who is studying whether environmental contaminants suppress bats’ immune function. “We know they are exposed to and accumulate organochlorines, mercury, arsenic, lead, dioxins,” she says, “but we don’t understand the effects.”

Which, in the end, is the central dilemma facing pesticide-reliant societies. Proving, with statistical certainty, that low-level pesticide exposure makes living things more vulnerable to disease is notoriously difficult. There are too many different pesticides, lurking in too many complex, poorly understood habitats to build definitively damning indictments. The evidence is subtle, suggestive. But with the rapid decimation of amphibians, bees, and bats, it is accumulating, fast.
http://e360.yale.edu/feature/behind_mass_die_offs_pesticides_lurk_as_culprit/2228/

[In_The_Wind]

5. Damn!

[Berlum]

6. Mutant GMO Dead Bats

As everyone must agree, tis Batshit Crazy to occultly spread mutant plants and seeds hither and yon. Bat-freaking-shit Crazy. Whole ecosystems going froot-freaking-loops.

[farminator3000]

8. DOUBLE and TRIPLE F*** ME!!! also KY and MN and coming to MO

"We've found compelling evidence that the tri-colored bat, the little brown bat and the Northern long-eared bat may need to be listed because of White Nose Syndrome," said T.J. Miller, chief of endangered species for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Midwest region in Bloomington, Minn. "We're analyzing factors and information to see if such a listing is warranted. If so, their listing could come by the summer of 2013."
http://www.semissourian.com/story/1927243.html

***

Now, the disease has been found in five Kentucky counties: Bell, Edmonson, Breckenridge, Trigg and Wayne counties.

But if bats keep dying, humans will start noticing. As Kentucky bat ecologist Brooke Hines told me last year, the species helps keep insect populations under control.

“[Bats] are a biological control. Nature’s pesticides, if you will. They’re considered one of the keystone species which means when we start to see populations of them declining for whatever reason, it starts to make biologists and ecologists go, ‘okay, I think there’s something going on with the ecosystem overall.’”
http://www.wfpl.org/post/deadly-bat-disease-found-mammoth-cave-national-park

***

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/13702455-deadly-bat-epidemic-could-add-billions-to-crippled-us-agriculture