An update to the previous post of the subject of fish, bugs, and bats: From today’s Asheville Citizen-Times on the spread of white-nose syndrome in the western part of the state:
Biologists checking on bats that hibernate in mines and caves in the region were hoping against hope this year that a fungus killing bats in the Northeast might have traveled south without quite the lethal power.
They have been disappointed.
White-nose syndrome has claimed more than 90 percent of bats in three sites around the region, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission announced this week, and has now been found in seven Western North Carolina counties.
The only good news is the disease doesn’t seem to effect tree-roosting bats.
