"What's killing the bats next door?"

[crofeather]

First the frogs, then the honey bees (I haven't seen one single honey bee this spring!!! ) and now...

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New Jersey Real-Time News

Breaking Local News from New Jersey

What's killing the bats next door?

by Brian Murray/The Star-Ledger

Wednesday March 05, 2008, 1:11 AM

Finding bats flapping around on a snowy, winter afternoon is more than strange. It's sick, and it's exactly what wildlife biologist Alan Hicks found last week as he visited a cave outside Rosendale, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley.

"It's snowing right now; there is snow on the ground, and the temperature is in the upper 20s -- and the bats are out. We also have dead bats on the ground, mostly little browns," he said.

It was one more cave and one more confirmation of an alarming problem: Bats in the Northeast are dying, and no one is sure why.

Hicks discovered the problem in New York in January 2007. The bats were emerging from cave crevices and other hibernation spots in the dead of winter, taking flight, burning up crucial fat reserves stored in the fall -- and dropping dead.

The phenomenon spread to other caves this winter and was confirmed last month at three caves in southwestern Vermont and two mines in western Massachusetts. While New Jersey and Pennsylvania appear clear for now, scientists fear it may be only a matter of time before the problem spreads here.

Federal authorities have asked everyone in the Northeast to notify wildlife officials if they find bats, dead or alive, in the outdoors.

"Last year, when we first found this, we lost up to 18,000 bats. This year we're talking about 400,000. We've found problems in almost every cave in the state, with one exception in Syracuse," said Hicks, the mammal specialist for the New York Endangered Species Unit.

The phenomenon has been dubbed "white-nose syndrome" because researchers climbing into mines, caves and underground crevices where the bats are hibernating have found many with a white fungus on their faces.

Yet the fungus appears to be common to the region and is not on the faces of all sick bats. It may be incidental to whatever is disturbing the creatures.

"We're finding the white fungus on some of them, but clearly not all of them," Hicks said. "What is the old saying? It's an enigma wrapped in a mystery. The long and short of it is we have no smoking gun."

Hibernating bats usually are predictable. They settle in specific parts of their winter hibernating spots, known as hibernacula, every season, finding just the right humidity and warmth -- well above freezing, where temperatures hover between 37 and 45 degrees. The species known as big brown bats will occasionally emerge and take to the skies during unusually warm winter days, but the other bats stay put.

Lacking any evidence of bats being outside, the white fungus was pretty much all New Jersey zoologist Mick Valent had to go on two weeks ago.

He and a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inspected one of the largest and most famous hibernation spots -- the former Hibernia Mine in Rockaway Township. Six of the nine bat species that flutter in Northeastern skies are found hibernating there, including the Indiana bat, which is on the federal and state endangered species lists.

"We didn't find anything. We found a number of different bats in clusters. We were inside about an hour and a half, and it's something we'd see if it was there," said Valent, who is with New Jersey's Endangered and Non-Game Species Program.

Valent plans to return in the spring, to see if the bats are leaving the caves as they should to begin their feeding season.

Bats, like the world's disappearing frog and salamander populations, help nature maintain an ecological balance and assist agriculture by feeding on insects. Biologists contend a bat population of 100,000 eats upward of 21 tons of insects from spring to fall.

Of the nine species found in New Jersey and New York, the hoary, red and silver-haired bats tend to be part-timers that migrate from the South each spring and leave each fall. More local are the little brown bat, which also is the most common, the big brown, the Northern long-eared, the Indiana, the Eastern small-footed and the Eastern pipistrel.

"The only two we haven't seen (affected) are the Eastern small-footed, because we haven't seen many, and the big brown. But we don't know what that means. Maybe we just haven't come across the sick ones," Hicks said.

"What we do know is, whatever this is, it is spread by the bats themselves. That seems clear."

'JUST A PRECAUTION'

Human activity, such as caving and spelunking, is probably not a contributing factor, experts said. The illness also does not appear to spread to humans, but precautions are being taken.

"We're asking people to stay out of areas where they believe bats may be hibernating, just in case there is a pathogen they could be spreading from cave to cave. It's just a precaution. We don't see any evidence yet that it's happening," Valent said.

Two of the region's largest caving groups, the National Speleological Society and the Northeastern Cave Conservancy, opted last month to close all visitation to sites they own and operate. The sites include 11 caves in New York and one in Pennsylvania.

"We also are interested in protecting the bats, and aside from closing the caves, we are trying to build a database on caver activities," said NCC president Robert Addis, whose group owns eight of the New York caves.

"We're asking all cavers who may have been in any of the infected caves since January 2007 to list all other caves, worldwide, they have visited since then, in case there is a link," he said.

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Bat Caves Closed to Fight Deadly Fungus Foe

By LiveScience Staff

posted: 02 May 2009 11:52 am ET

It's not likely you've visited any of the thousands of caves and mines in 33 states where bats are dying of a fungus infection. And you won't be visiting them now, either.

The U.S. Forest Service has closed them in an effort to control the fungus, according to news reports.

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a poorly understood condition that, in the two years since its discovery, has spread to at least seven northeastern states and killed as many as half a million bats, according to Indiana State University researchers.

"Essentially these bats are hanging on the cave ceiling almost like a piece of food that you've forgotten about in your refrigerator and for whatever reason now they're getting moldy," microbiologist David Blehert of the U.S. Geological Survey told LiveScience in October.

The syndrome has baffled scientists since its discovery in the winter of 2006 in upstate New York, where hibernating bats were found with a mysterious white fungus growing on their faces and wing membranes. Hundreds of emaciated bats were found dead in and around their caves, suggesting that they had starved to death during their hibernating months, and affected populations commonly suffer 75 to 100 percent mortality.

Only in recent months have researchers began to untangle the mystery of WNS.

The killer is a member of a group of cold-loving fungi called Geomyces, Blehert's team announced in October.

They are still mystified by its relationship to such unprecedented bat mortality, according to a study of the situation led by Justin Boyles, a graduate student in biology at Indiana State University, published in March in by Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

The caves, in 20 states from Minnesota to Maine, plus caves and old mines in 13 Southern states, will be declared off limits later this month, according to an emergency declaration. Many of the caves are in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.

Worldwide, bats play critical ecological roles in insect control, plant pollination and seed dissemination, and the decline of North American bat populations would likely have far-reaching ecological consequences, Blehert and his colleagues said. They noted that parallels can be drawn between the threat posed by WNS and chytridiomycosis, a lethal fungal skin infection that has recently caused precipitous global amphibian population declines.

"We are uncertain about the long-term effects of white-nose syndrome on North American bats, but we are quite concerned about future effects on bat populations wherever environmental conditions are conducive to growth of the fungus," Blehert said in October. "To manage and perhaps halt this disease, we have to first better understand it."

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Makes me wonder, Mother Nature keeps sending us all these alarm bells, when do we start to listen?

[smerchly]

Interesting post , & it's hard for the average person to come up with a reason for this to happen , like the bees & frogs , there seems to be strange things happening to them . I know certain insecticides & fungicides like "sevin" can kill bees , & the bats could be injesting insects that have been sprayed or have eaten chemicals that get passed through the food chain . This is one part of government spending that should never be cut , we need to find out why the bats are dying .....

[bigugli]

There are a lot of things happening in our chemically, and genetically, altered worlds which we do not understand. The sad truth is that most research into the use of a new substance only extends for 10 years, on average. Nobody is willing to foot the bill on 25 year impact studies before releasing new product. Government would not dare to impose such restrictions as all R&D would grind to a halt.

Odds are, the bee problem and bat problem will eventually be sorted out, and it is quite possible that the connection will be a change we have made to an enzyme or protein. Some bee keepers already suspect this possibility and will not put their bees on Monsanto soy.

[knightfisher]

If these bats woke early from hibernation would it not suggest it was something in the air ?

[Dan Andrews]

It's that bloody crap they've been spraying for gypsy moths I bet. You can't tell me any chemical only affects one species of one type of creature. Bats eat the moths and it probably flips them up.

[bigugli]

It's that bloody crap they've been spraying for gypsy moths I bet. You can't tell me any chemical only affects one species of one type of creature. Bats eat the moths and it probably flips them up.

The moths aren't being sprayed with a chemical. It's a form of biological warfare. They are being hit with a species specific bacteria that is effective on many types of caterpillar and moth/butterfly. The effective element is BT, properly called 'bacillus thuringiensis' and has also been used previously to control tent caterpillar back since the late 80's.

[knightfisher]

The moths aren't being sprayed with a chemical. It's a form of biological warfare. They are being hit with a species specific bacteria that is effective on many types of caterpillar and moth/butterfly. The effective element is BT, properly called 'bacillus thuringiensis' and has also been used previously to control tent caterpillar back since the late 80's.

That's yet to be disclosed to the public, you know governments and such with their secretive behaviour.

I still think it was something in the air that pervaded their cave, that woke them up prematurely.

http://www.vcn.bc.ca/stop/preface.html

Our Case Against Moth Spraying

PREFACE

Since 1992, Agriculture Canada has sprayed over 300,000 litres of the bacterial, chemical pesticide Foray 48B over much of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, at an estimated cost to the taxpayers of 7 million dollars.

Foray 48B contains 2.1% Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.) and 97.9% "inerts" ingredients. We are not allowed to know what chemicals the inert may contain as they are protected under the Trade Secrets Act. In fact, this vital information is even denied to a physician who may need it to safely treat a victim of pesticide poisoning.

Further, we are not allowed to know what pesticides our blood may contain, neither are our physicians. The results of any such test must be sent to Health Canada. (or prior to April, 1995 to Agriculture Canada) The only alternative is to have one's blood sent to the Environmental Health Centre in Dallas, Texas. Dr. June Irwin, a Montreal Medical Specialist has spent some $20,000 of her own money sending her patients blood samples to Dallas for analysis. The results have been shocking.

The Environmental Appeal Board (EAB) has recommended that all the ingredients in Foray 48B be disclosed to the public that is being sprayed with it. However to-date, all recommendations made by the EAB, including this one, have been ignored.

Enacted over half a century ago, the Trade Secrets Act was intended to protect manufacturers from competitors who might copy their recipe. However, now that companies can use commonly available "reverse engineering" techniques to find out the inert ingredients in their competitors' products, it renders the Act obsolete. Today, this information is kept secret from the public only.

It is interesting to note, that most manufacturers of cosmetic and toiletry products now list the ingredients on the label. It doesn't seem to have done their business any harm, nor do they appear to be concerned about their competitors copying their recipe!

The chemicals used as inert include some of the most dangerous substances known. For example, Methylene Chloride, banned in the United States 10 years ago as a suspected carcinogen, is still being used in 127 pesticides in Canada. Methylene Chloride is a "food grade" additive, used to strip caffeine from coffee beans.

An Agriculture Canada inter-office memo names Sodium Hydroxide (caustic soda) and Potassium Phosphate as two of the main inert ingredients in Foray 48B. An EPA document identifies Methyl Paraben as another. Sulphuric Acid (battery acid) and Phosphoric Acid are also used in the production of Foray 48B. The rest are unknown.

All these noxious chemicals are registered food additives and, although no more than a few parts per million are allowed in the finished product, there will never be a better reason for avoiding highly processed "junk" foods.

Sodium Hydroxide is on an EPA's Special Health Hazard list, and is so corrosive that no more than 10% is allowed to be used in drain openers. Homeowners are advised to wear masks when using products containing this substance.

Potassium Phosphate is also highly corrosive to skin and mucous membranes and it can cause ulcers. This chemical was registered by EPA as an active pesticide ingredient (a biocide) as was Methyl Paraben a toxic synthetic compound which causes birth defects in laboratory animals and, which is on the FDA's list of additives requiring further study.

In order to have a pesticide registered in Canada, a chemical company must produce certain studies to show that, in effect, it won't kill everyone in sight in an obvious fashion. Some of these studies are carried out by the company itself; companies such as Monsanto and Velsicol who have both been investigated for fraudulent research work.

Or, the studies are farmed out to privately owned testing laboratories that are chosen, and paid for, by the chemical company. Laboratories such as Industrial Biotest and Craven Labs of Texas, who have both been convicted for falsifying information on numerous pesticide safety tests.

Eighty two pesticide testing companies were under investigation by EPA and the FDA during one four year period for fraudulent or careless testing work.

In Canada, we are not allowed to see these studies as they are classified "proprietary" under the Trade Secrets Act, however, they can be obtained from the United States. (see page 8)

Contrary to what we've been told, B.t. is not, in fact, "found in the soil all around us." In the United States, in a survey of soils never previously treated with B.t. Delucca et al, (1981) found B.t. with a frequency of only 0.75% in the approximately 32,000 bacteria isolates obtained. They rated it as relatively rare in natural soils. However, being ubiquitous in soils is no guarantee of safety; it is a "common soil bacteria" that causes leprosy.

Of course, the soil in Vancouver and area today, after 3 years of non-stop spraying with this bacteria, which has the potential to grow and replicate in the environment, could no longer be considered natural and is bound to be saturated with B.t.

We are told that organic growers use B.t., yet organic growers appealed the spraying of Saltspring Island in 1993 for the following reason: "There is a concern that organic produce could be contaminated through drift which could result in growers losing their organic status." Evidence was produced to show that Foray 48B is not approved for use by organic growers in the U.S.A. And, the U.S. Department of Agriculture in "Gypsy Moth Management in the U.S." recommends; "Establishing untreated buffer zones around organic farming operations to mitigate the potential for drifting insecticides landing in fields."

Promoters of the moth spraying have stated that several urban areas, in the northeastern part of the United States and Canada have been aerially sprayed with B.t. This is incorrect. Aerial spraying in eastern Canada has been restricted to forests and rural areas. They don't spray Toronto and Montreal! While in the northeastern part of the United States the B.t. spray programs are always voluntary and are not carried out over major cities.

We are also being expected to believe that nobody ever got sick from the spraying. This is utter rubbish! The fact is, there have always been health reactions reported in areas sprayed, but these "warning bells" have often been ignored by local authorities in much the same way as they have been in B.C.

In fact, The B.C. experience is no doubt being touted in other areas targeted for spraying as "no reason for concern." After all, not only did no one get sick (officially) but there was even a $64,000 government funded health study designed to "prove" it!

After Lane County, Oregon was sprayed in 1985/'86, B.t. was found in the bloodstream of a man who died of pneumonia. Citing this and other incidents Dr. Art Edamura of the Preventive Medicine Center asks:

"DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR AN AUTOPSY BEFORE WE HAVE PROOF?"

Perhaps we do! However, according to Novo Nordisk (the manufacturer of Foray 48B) "there is no single test available that can be used in a normal hospital laboratory to conclusively distinguish the production strain" (of Foray 48B) so perhaps the spraying's dark secrets will remain hidden forever.

B.t. products are no longer available for domestic use.

On November 5, 1985 Agriculture Canada held a private strategy session entitled "Understanding the gypsy moth threat" at the Robson Square Media Centre in Vancouver. Local delegates as well as those from other parts of Canada and the United States attended. Here are some of their comments:

"There are serious impediments to pest eradication efforts growing in Canada. One is the attitude that aerial spraying is no longer politically possible."

A.C. Schmidt, Chief,

Plant Health Division, Agriculture Canada

"Can we ask anyone here to be serious about the gypsy moth, with a few adult males reported in Fort Langley, and small populations in the area of Chilliwack and Courtenay?"

Jack W. Toovey, Chief Forester,

B.C. Forest Products

"The gypsy moth could be called its own worst enemy. It has such a high reproductive rate that the 2nd year of heavy defoliation is usually the last before the population collapses from starvation, disease and parasites."

James 0. Nichols, Chief,

Division of Pest Management, Pennsylvania

"Untreated infestations collapse naturally after two years.

James 0. Nichols

"Surviving insects can produce as many new egg masses after spraying as existed before spraying."

James 0. Nichols

"There are no mysteries or secrets involved in organizing an effective spraying program ... The keys are adequate planning which is a year round job... obtaining money... along the way you mix in government forms... obscene phone calls... and assorted attorneys. A polished bureaucrat will have no problems with these items. That's why they pay us so much."

James 0. Nichols

"We are not solving the gypsy moth problem in Pennsylvania, nor is it being solved anywhere."

James 0. Nichols

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GYPSY MOTH in British Columbia, Canada. - (a background)

The first recorded visit of the gypsy moth to B.C. was in 1912, when it was accidentally introduced to Vancouver in shrubs from Japan. It did not establish here.

(C.Gordon Hewitt, B.C. Entomology Proceedings, 1913)

Pheromone trapping began in B.C. in 1977 when 72 traps were deployed throughout the province and no moths were found. Prior to this, there was no way of knowing how many moths visited here at any given time. Then in 1978, 210 traps intended by Ottawa to be used throughout B.C. were set up in the Kitsilano area alone and (of course) moths were found.

Agriculture Canada applied for a permit to aerial spray 100 city blocks in Kitsilano, warning of economic disaster if the spraying did not take place. Public opposition halted the aerial spraying, and a limited, voluntary ground spray program covering 8 city blocks took place instead. The gypsy moth did not return to Kitsilano.

(The Vancouver Express, May 30, 1979)

The number of moths found is in direct proportion to the number of traps set. For example; 2,050 traps were deployed in 1980 and 1 moth was found. Then by 1992 the number of traps had increased to 23,000 and 162 moths were found.

Entomologists were unable to identify the european strain of gypsy moth from the asian one until a genetic coding technique (not accepted by many experts in the field) was discovered in 1992. And presto, the very same year asian gypsy moths were "discovered" in the Vancouver area, and a state of "emergency" declared by Agriculture Canada.

Moth and man have coexisted peacefully in this province for over 80 years, and not a single tree in B.C. has ever been defoliated by gypsy moths. The moths do not flourish here and tiny colonies, if left untreated, will collapse naturally in a couple of years. The facts speak for themselves. There is no need to spray! Why then was the spraying "jump started" in 1992 and continues to this day?

We believe it's a simple matter of job security. Agriculture Canada is a duplication of the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and the redundancy axe is poised and ready to strike. 45,000 federal government employees will be made redundant over the next 3 years.

However, if a federal bureaucrat can prove himself indispensable" as in saving B.C. from "monster" moths then he might be able to hang onto his job and department for a while longer, providing he keeps on spraying!

There are a great many snouts around the moth spraying trough and, if the program were cancelled it would leave a glut of trappers, sprayers, organizers, promoters, P.R. people etc. all applying for unemployment insurance and looking for a job in the private sector. Nobody wants to be tossed out on the reject pile - arrogant bureaucrats with a god complex least of all. So there's obviously a vested interest for some, in keeping the moth spraying going as long as possible. The spray program has sinister undertones, and a full public enquiry is the only way to clear the air.

Every year the spraying continues, its potential to cause disease and death increases. The American Cancer Society reports that the rate of leukaemia rises six fold among children who have been exposed to pesticides in play areas and school yards. And, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health (1995) children whose yards are sprayed with pesticides are four times more likely to get cancer (soft tissue sarcomas) than their healthy counterparts.

Any one who still believes the spin doctors when they tell us that Foray 48B is harmless to humans, should consider the following: Health and Welfare Canada report that 370 pesticides, once deemed "safe" (officially) have been removed from the market over the last 10 years, indicating that many pesticides currently in use will meet the same fate in future.

[bigugli]

I won't waste my breathe on the conspiracy stuff.

I've worked with BT, used it, watched the cultures develop in the field and the lab. It's one of many proven pest management tools out there.

As for the non- specified bulk, can you say filler. No different than say household bleach or laundry soap. Industrial strength Javex is only 10% bleach. Laundry detergents range from 5-10% pure soap with the rest as unspecified filler. Maybe it's meant to permeate your clothes and eventually your skin Those little blue crystals don't actually dissolve. Maybe they're nano chips. Guess we have to go back to being naked.

Starch is used all the time as 'filler' to bulk up the foods that we eat daily. Modified starch, corn starch, wheat and corn by-product, glutens, etc.... Even the booze has 'filler'/water.

[knightfisher]

''conspiracy stuff'' I don't think so.

Why are so many people and governments world wide banning hundreds if not thousands of these pesticides,herbisides, fungisides et al.

Patients with unexplained headaches, dizzy spells, fainting, shortness of breath, overall ill health,

have been attributed to some of the chemicals above.

Chemical companies obviously have a vested interest in selling their products, so of course there ''safe''.....until years later when enough people get sick and then finally they are banned.

http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/environment/RATE/pestfact.html

Sounds to me like people are just ''sick'' and tired of being --guinea pigs--.

''conspiracy stuff'' I don't think so.

[Dan Andrews]

Bruce I realize they were using a parasitic agent but the likelihood that it only affected one life form is a huge claim. Yes I tried nematoads on my lawn and didn't get sick but I wonder if that's what caused the starlings to get the runs all over my car windows.

[bigugli]

Bruce I realize they were using a parasitic agent but the likelihood that it only affected one life form is a huge claim. Yes I tried nematoads on my lawn and didn't get sick but I wonder if that's what caused the starlings to get the runs all over my car windows.

Starling shat, like gull or goose and many other birds is mostly liquid. If you want to see messy, stand under the big flocks as they feed and fly through the graperies. Rain gear reccomended

Or from a human perspective, what happens to our bowels when we gorge ourselves on fruit ( quite a healthy thing for the innards actually)? The bowels get loose and you unload a puddle instead of a loaf.

[FishyWishy]

The moths aren't being sprayed with a chemical. It's a form of biological warfare. They are being hit with a species specific bacteria that is effective on many types of caterpillar and moth/butterfly. The effective element is BT, properly called 'bacillus thuringiensis' and has also been used previously to control tent caterpillar back since the late 80's.

Isn't that what they use to make Thuringer Sausage?