White Nosed Syndrome in France
I got back from a stellar trip to Costa Rica yesterday – I am still trying to identify some of the bats I saw, but I guess I saw close to 50 different species of mammals including Baird’s Tapir, White-lipped Peccaries and Silky Anteaters plus about 20 different bat species. I will try to get a report done over the weekend.
Meantime here is an interesting paper on the White-nosed Fungus that is decimating cave dwelling bat colonies in the USA. The paper explains the fungus is present in France, but French bats might be resistant, so perhaps it has been here for a long time and animals now have acquired immunity.
http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/2/pdfs/09-1391.pdf
If anyone knows more about this please post your comments becuase its a very serious problem.
Jon
4 Comments
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Matt Miller
Here is a feature from Nature Conservancy magazine on the topic: http://www.nature.org/magazine/spring2009/features/
I know a lot of U.S. caves are restricting or prohibiting entry until this problem is figured out. There remain far more questions than answers.
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mattinidaho
Here is a Nature Conservancy feature on the topic: http://www.nature.org/magazine/spring2009/features/
I know that many U.S. caves are restricting or prohibiting entry until this is figured out. There remain far more questions than answers.
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Coke Smith
Jon! I CAN’T WAIT to see your report from CR! Sounds awesome! Hey – three months until we’re out of here! Hard to believe – still so much to do…
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Matt Miller
Here is a feature in Nature Conservancy magazine on the topic. http://www.nature.org/magazine/spring2009/features/
I know that many caves in the US are passing very strict regulations on entering caves, until the problem is figured out. I have not heard any really compelling answers yet.