Officials have raised the bat signal over Colorado. 🦇 Here's how you can join the Bat Watch in about 15 minutes to help local bats survive white-nose syndrome.
“Researchers are racing to test vaccines that could help bats survive white-nose syndrome,” Mueller said. The plan is to infuse the vaccine into a jelly, which then could be applied at roosting sites where bats hang about mating, raising their young, grooming each other and hibernating.
Bats eat mosquitos, flies and other bugs, helping to keep insect populations in balance. But bat populations have been on a downward slide around the United States due to increasing challenges, including insect population declines and the use of pesticides. The most deadly threat in recent years has been the white-nose fungus that attacks bats during hibernation and sucks nutrients and water out of their bodies, causing them to starve. Millions have died in the East and Midwest.
Data that public bat finders supply will help guide biologists, project leaders said. For example, biologists are interested in roosts that serve as the equivalents of maternity wards for bat colonies. These could be priority sites for introducing vaccines. “They’re like flying puppies. Some people are scared of them but I like them. And they’re worth an insane amount of money for agriculture,” said CSU graduate Wyatt Ortega, 25, who helped develop the bat watch program. “They hold up so many other things in Colorado and other states and all over the world. It’s like, if one domino falls, everything else could fall.”
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