As bats die out, public tries to protect them
The onslaught that hit bats in Connecticut beginning in 2008 is ongoing. It’s one of the great environmental disasters of our time, happening in real time in front of us.
Urban wildlife expert Laura Simon likens the loss of bats flying at dusk to not hearing birds’ songs in spring.
“You think ‘Wait a minute. Something’s missing here,’ ” she said.
But there are small areas of solace — a better understanding of the bats that still live in the state by both wildlife experts and by humans in general.
“People are now saying ‘I never knew bats were good. Now I want them around,’” said Jenny Dickson, head of the wildlife division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
“They’re saying ‘OK. Let’s find a better place for the bats,’ ” Simon said.
The bat bad news continues, however.
In April, a report written jointly by a variety of federal and state groups, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey found that nationally, the populations of three species of bats — the northern long-eared bat, the tricolored bat and the little brown bat — have declined by 90 percent from 1995 to 2018.
The survey is the most comprehensive study of bat populations ever compiled in the US, involving 200 study sites in 27 state and two Canadian provinces, as part of the US Bat Monitoring Program.
The report may strengthen the arguments for two of the species — the tricolored bat and the little brown bat — to be added to the federal Endangered Species list. The fish and wildlife service already lists northern long-eared bats as a threatened species.
Connecticut is ahead of the federal government in that regard. The DEEP now lists all three species as endangered, along with the eastern small-footed bats and the Indiana bat.
What’s killing the bats is a non-native invasive species — a fungus that human boots or backpacks probably carried from Europe to caves in New York. Bats spread the fungus rapidly. It was first identified in New York the winter of 200607. A year later it was in Connecticut
The fungus — Pseudogymnoascus destructans — infects bats’ skin and prevents them from hibernating safely. They become restless, and leave their winter quarters too early, only to die of dehydration and starvation.
Because the fungus leaves a smudgy white residue on the bats’ faces, it’s known as White Nose Syndrome.
Dickson said all three species used to be common in the state. Now,
using acoustic surveys, the DEEP finds them here and there.
“The northern longeared bat used to be the most ubiquitous bat in the state,” she said. “It’s declined by 98 percent. In the last year, we heard maybe one or two.”
Tricolored bats have declined by 95 percent in the state, and little brown bats by 90 to 95 percent, she said.
“They used to be one of the most abundant bats in the state,” Dickson said of little brown bats.
But because human contact stresses bats — which are stressed enough — the DEEP now only surveys bats acoustically, listening for their piping vocalizations at night.
Doing so has had unexpected benefits.
Dickson said the DEEP staff has occasionally picked up on the sounds of Eastern small-footed bats — a species it wasn’t sure was still around in the state. It’s also learning more about three species of tree-roosting migratory bats that flutter up from the South to summer here.
People have also begun to pay more attention to bat conservation. The Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy has installed a gate at Tory’s Cave — part of a nature preserve in New Milford — in part, to keep people out of the cave and away from the bats that overwinter there.
“People are different,” said Paul Elconin, the conservancy’s director of land conservation. “But when you explain what’s
happening, they appreciate and sympathize with the situation.’’
Joe Gray, owner of Bat R’ US, a wildlife control company in Bethel, said he still gets calls to get bats out of people’s attics. But some clients — who now know about bats’ prodigious, environmentally-beneficial ability to eat hundreds of flying insects a night — want to keep them on their property.
“People are putting bat houses up,’’ Gray said. “That’s the way to go.”
Dickson of the DEEP said she is “tremendously encouraged” by this change in attitude.
“We are finding we can co-exist with the natural world,” she said.