
Bats do exist in this area, but apparently a new bat disease does not.
Wildlife specialists from New York down to North Carolina are keeping a watchful eye on reported cases of what is being called white-nose syndrome.
The disease has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the eastern United States, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The disease has now been documented in a retired Avery County mine and in a cave at Grandfather Mountain State Park, both in North Carolina. The two documented cases mark the arrival of the bat disease in North Carolina.
“White-nose syndrome is confirmed in Virginia and Tennessee, so we expected we would be one of the next states to see the disease,” said Gabrielle Graeter, a biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. “This discovery marks the arrival of one of the most devastating threats to bat conservation in our time.”
A news conference was held in Asheville, N.C., Wednesday afternoon to explain the significance of the two documented white-nose syndrome cases.
Locally, there are bats in the Reelfoot Lake area and across Obion County but they are tree-dwelling bats.
“As far as I know, it (white-nose syndrome) has never been documented in the tree hibernating species,” said David Haggard, a regional naturalist for the Tennessee State Parks.
He said he received an e-mail last fall from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requesting help with how to survey bat populations in the state and how to document the disease. Haggard said he responded saying he didn’t know of an accurate method to survey the local bat population.
Read MoreWiki -
White nose syndrome (WNS) is a poorly understood malady associated with the deaths of more than a million
bats.
[1] The condition, named for a distinctive
fungal growth around the muzzles and on the wings of many affected animals, was first identified in a
cave in
Schoharie County, New York, USA, in February 2006,
[2] and started showing up in the news after January 2007.
[3] It spread to other New York caves and into Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut
[4] in 2008.
[5] In early 2009 it was confirmed in New Hampshire,
[6] New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
[7] West Virginia
[4] and in March 2010 in Ontario, Canada, and northern Tennessee.
[8][9] As of spring 2010, the condition had been found in over 115 caves and mines ranging throughout the Northeastern US as far south as Tennessee and as far west as Oklahoma and into Quebec and Ontario Provinces in Canada
[10].