![]() No one knows exactly why.īats play a vital role in our ecosystems. Overall, millions have died nationwide.īut, miraculously, the hit to the remaining gray bat populations never came. Bat populations were hardest hit in northern states, while those in warmer climes (with shorter hibernations) are faring slightly better. Indiana bats are not far behind, sustaining an 85% decline. The disease has slashed northern long-eared bat and little brown bat populations by 90% across their ranges. Without a food source to offset those costs, the interruption means that the bat runs through its winter energy store and dies. The waking of an infected bat during hibernation triggers its metabolism and body temperature to rise. “They measure every energy expenditure and gain, and it’s always a delicate balance for them to make it through winter.” “Bats are nature’s ultimate accountant,” says Pete Pattavina, a U.S. White-nose syndrome takes its name from the white residue it leaves on bats’ faces and wings, but it’s lethal because it wakes bats during winter hibernation-when every calorie counts. “I thought gray bats were done for, that they were something I’d tell my kids about.” He feared the impact of white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that started killing hibernating bats in New York in 2006, and soon after began an unstoppable tear across North America.įederally threatened gray bats, year-round cave-roosting mammals that amass in vast colonies, seemed to be at high risk, with the majority of Tennessee’s population relying on just four caves for hibernation. “Back in 2010, I thought I’d never see this sight again,” says Cory Holliday, The Nature Conservancy’s cave and karst program director in Tennessee. The darkness pulses with leathery wing beats carrying the rush of cold subterranean air, and a quarter of a million bats rise, spiraling into the surrounding trees in a seemingly endless ribbon-the largest summer bat emergence in the eastern United States. By half past the hour, the entrance-a sinkhole 15 feet across-is a vortex of flying bodies. Five minutes later, three more flutter out.
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