"Bee and bat populations alike experience a sharp decline in North America. Whereas, however, the dying of bees remains a bit of a mystery, the cause of the collapse of bat populations has been given a name: It is a fungitic disease labeled WNS, White Nose Syndrome, that has infected and killed an estimated 5 to 7 million individuals so far and is still rampaging, from North Carolina to Tennessee up to Quebec, through 16 US states and four Canadian provinces.
"Very much like bee's Colony Collapse Disorder, WNS has caught the attention of a wider public primarily because, just like bees, bats are also vital for the agricultural industry and so their decimation and possible extinction would and already does have a great economic impact: in the tropics, they are important pollinators; in North America, they are essential for pest control, consuming many thousands of metric tons of insects each year. According to an article published in Science (sciencemag.org March 13, 2011), the estimated average value of bats to the North American economy is 22.9 billion dollars a year. A large-scale loss of bat populations (Adding to the problem of WNS, many thousand bats a year belonging to species that are not cave- but migrating tree-dwellers die from wind turbines) would lead to a further intensification in the use of pesticides: maybe an additional financial burden to agriculturalists, but the real costs caused by the so-called 'downstream effects' of increased pesticide use can not even be calculated and damage, especially long-term ecological impact, might be immense."
Bats and bees dying.
by Angelika Windhofer
"Very much like bee's Colony Collapse Disorder, WNS has caught the attention of a wider public primarily because, just like bees, bats are also vital for the agricultural industry and so their decimation and possible extinction would and already does have a great economic impact: in the tropics, they are important pollinators; in North America, they are essential for pest control, consuming many thousands of metric tons of insects each year. According to an article published in Science (sciencemag.org March 13, 2011), the estimated average value of bats to the North American economy is 22.9 billion dollars a year. A large-scale loss of bat populations (Adding to the problem of WNS, many thousand bats a year belonging to species that are not cave- but migrating tree-dwellers die from wind turbines) would lead to a further intensification in the use of pesticides: maybe an additional financial burden to agriculturalists, but the real costs caused by the so-called 'downstream effects' of increased pesticide use can not even be calculated and damage, especially long-term ecological impact, might be immense."
Bats and bees dying.
by Angelika Windhofer
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