A beautiful Endangered Gray Bat
Photo credit: Dr. Renn Tumlison
This Issue is one that I wrote about some time ago, but recent news has reminded me once again, that the crisis for this animal has not only not gone away, but has gained momentum and appears to now be an out of control situation: Biological Diversity Public Action
The animals are beautiful, beneficial Bats and the disease that is wiping this mammal off of the face of the Earth, is white-nose syndrome.
Many people have a negative opinion of this ” most helpful friend “ and even those who don’t fear it, may have a difficult time feeling any great remorse for its current plight.
Right now, Bats in this country are facing nearly complete eradication from this rampant fungal disease and the prospects of the species surviving, do not look too good.
You should be very concerned about this situation, but you may not know why.
Bats are the single most prolific insect eater on the planet and if they ceased to exist, those nasty little creepy, crawly, critters might just, as in the biblical prophecies, not only, ” inherit the earth, “ they may just take it over quite quickly, with little to stop them, other than more huge quantities of what is becoming more and more frequently, “useless insecticides.”
The over use of these terrible toxins for way too long now, has caused countless numbers of insects to become “super bugs,” that are developing complete immunity to them.
Now, this is all a very scary thought, unless you happen to love bugs.
As for the beleaguered Bats, the white-nose syndrome has now spread across the country into 22 states and has killed more than 7 million Bats in its death march.
Irregardless of our personal feelings about Bats, we all need them in our lives, because the world would not be a very “human friendly” place to live with out them.
We actually have a Bat house on our property and continue to hope that one day, it might just have some visitors~
As usual, it would be wonderful if you chose to get involved and several ways to do this are detailed in these two stories:
http://gator-woman.blogspot.com/2012/01/millions-of-dead-bats-is-very-bad-news.html
http://gator-woman.blogspot.com/2012/06/do-you-really-want-to-live-in-world.html
Walking with the Alligators 
Reblogged this on Vegan Lynx.
Well, I don’t like the news, but I do appreciate your posting about this issue and being involved.
We also have a bat house–which is empty. It was here when we moved in a year ago. Perhaps I should install a different one.
Thank you for caring about this animal, that many find offensive.
If they only understood how vital it is, they would welcome it to their yards too~
I used to see several species of bats around my house every evening in the summer. I have not seen any for two or three years…sad.
Great article, thank you. One of the leading scientists on bats in the U.S. is Merlin Tuttle. You or your readers might be interested, here is one of his links: http://batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/about-bci/our-founder.html
Thanks, Jet.
Yes, he most certainly is and there are some neat facts about him on my Grey Bat page here:
http://www.gator-woman.com/graybats.html
There are also many links on that page to general Bat information~
Enjoyed your website, Gator Woman, thanks for the link. Thanks, too, for educating humans on this very important fellow-mammal.
You are so very welcome Jet~
Thanks for posting about the plight of bats. I love these creatures. Around our neighborhood there are more bat boxes than bird houses or bird feeders. It seems like everyone here likes to be out at twilight & watch them swoop to get the mosquitoes. Wish more people could learn to love them!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Can you imagine here in Florida with all of the water and mosquitoes that we have, how very vital Bats are?
Unlike where you live, we see very few Bat houses around us here.
Hello Maam :),
Will it be Ok If I Reblog this Post ?
Of course it is~ Thank you for being so polite and asking.
But most of all, thank you for caring about them~
Thankyou Maam 🙂
Reblogged this on SALIL SAHANI PHOTOGRAPHY.
Bats are awesome! So glad you posted this! Hope it will help!
Thank you so much, but my tiny little Blog is hardly significant enough to make a difference.
What could perhaps help them though, is if everyone reading this, would re-blog it and then tell others about it.
You would be surprised how important word of mouth or grass roots support can be on a ” hot issue.”
Yes, we can all change the world for impacted wildlife, if only we would reach out and say, ” what can I do? “
I would be glad to reblog it and will.
I am sorry if that sounded pushy.
Hope you didn’t think that.
It sounded like a good idea to help pass it on.
But thank you so much for doing it~
No problem– all for a good cause.
I’m sorry to say, that while I know all life has intrinsic beauty, the actual beauty of bats eludes me.
Reblogged this on MOONSIDE.
Thank you for caring so much~
Part of my internship for animal health technology was to intern at a Wildlife Rehab Center. I had to learn how to clean a bat’s cage feed them especially when it was during the day and they were use to eating at night. Took a lot of proding. I found a respect and interest in bats I didn’t have before.
quite interesting little creatures.
Yisraela
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, one that few of us will ever be able to know.
It sounds like a wonderful place.
I ADORE bats…. They do so very much in ALL of our environments. And to think that they haven’t come much closer to help them with the white-nose syndrome, save not to contaminate each other (!!), is appalling. We NEED bats.
Thanks so much for writing about them — on Facebook I belong to all the bat sanctuaries / rescues. 🙂
As always, your wisdom shines and encompasses all who come here in your bright light~
Thank you for sharing your information and mostly, “welcome home.”
You’re incredibly kind and sweet…. I am so thankful for your blog and words, and speaking out on behalf of these beautiful creatures. All of them.
my brother has bats living in his attic in Ohio. He doesn’t care. I’d love to have bats in my attic. they are such great creatures and so helpful. I wish more people had bats.
We are in complete agreement on the Bats.
Without them, we would have a planet overrun with insects!
Maybe your brother could put up a Bat House and they would leave his attic and move into it??
He’s thought of that, but he has a 3 story house, so to put up a bat house would be more work than getting them to leave. He doesn’t mind them, so it’s no big deal.
Bats around the globe are vital in so many areas: Insect control, pollination of plants and other things. Bats are so amazing with so many varieties… and they are cool looking. Some do have diseases, though, and that is why people should not touch one if they find it injured. There are rescues around the world that advocate for them.
We both love them and have our own Bat house, but sadly have not seen any for years here! Their good deeds for us is HUGE!