Bats with white nose syndrome
The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced today that white-nose syndrome (WNS) has been confirmed among gray bat populations found in Tennessee. Already listed as endangered, this announcement comes as a blow to the gray bat as their populations have started to make a comeback nationwide. Although no deaths among the gray bat populations have been attributed to WNS, they were not one of the previous 6 bat species that had been diagnosed with the disease.
For more information on WNS, read Defenders’ magazine article here.
Defenders of Wildlife leads the pack when it comes to protecting wild animals and plants in their natural communities.
I have a question I hope a bat expert can answer. We have a small lake house located on Kentucky Lake. I know this sounds really strange, but the following has happened one time each of the last three years:
We go to our lake house in August and in the clear, hard plastic wastebasket in the southeast corner of one of the bedrooms is a dead bat! We have never seen any other bats in the house and no great number of bats outside. Why would one lone bat somehow manage to get in the house and each of the last three years the one bat dies in that same wastebasket?! We have no idea how the bat(s) get in.
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I’m not a bat expert, however would suggest removing the offending ‘death trap’ wastebasket (Off of the property entirely) and replacing it, if necessary, with an opaque
one. Perhaps made of a woven reed type. Good luck.
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