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Bat Disease Means More Bugs to Battle

Hinesburg, Vermont - May 26, 2008

Berthann Mulieri loves her garden at her Hinesburg home, but she said she isn't spending as much time here as she used to.

Too many bugs.

"I can be out here a little bit and then I have to go inside because they drive me nuts," she said.

Her backyard has more bugs, and none of the bats she used to see.

Every year in early May some 300 bats would settle under the metal roof of her house.

But not this year.

Scientists say a mysterious ailment known as white nose syndrome has killed as many as half a million bats throughout Vermont.

"It's worse than we had hoped for," said Scott Darling, a biologist with the Vermont Dept. of Fish and Game. "I'm willing to bet many of these bats that made it through the winter are going to make it through the summer. Whether they're going to reproduce or not is another factor. But clearly a good portion of them are still dying."

White nose syndrome has only been confirmed in five sites in Vermont. But Darling has had so many citizen reports of dead bats around the state, he now suspects dozens of sites are affected by it.

Scientists hope to learn more before bats hibernate again next winter. But Darling says the effect will be felt by humans this summer.

"Bats are voracious eaters and very effective predators," he said. "They can consume upwards of a thousand insects per hour. You can even take the averages, and 500,000 bats that are not on the landscape because of white nose syndrome would have eaten about 2 billion insects per night. Spread that over the summer, and that adds up to a lot of insects."

That means Berthann Mulieri will be spending more time indoors. But it's not just her yard that she's worried about.

"It's so frightening about what's happening to our planet," she said. "It's not going to be a big thing, it's going to be, as Rachel Carson said, a 'silent spring.' Well, the bats, they don't make any difference, who needs the honey bees, blah blah blah, but I don't think so. It's really frightening to me."

White nose syndrome has spread from just a handful of sites in New York a year ago to dozens in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts now. Scientists from around the Northeast want to understand it better before it spreads even farther. They plan to meet in Albany next month to talk about ways to protect the bats -- saying their role in the ecosystem is too important.

Kate Duffy - WCAX News

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