An article in Tuesday’s New York Times details the mysterious threat to bat populations that Xpress touched on in Green Scene recently.
So far, the bats that have been afflicted by this mysterious malady, dubbed “white-nose sydrome,” have been confined to caves in New York, Massachusetts and Vermont. But here in Western North Carolina, cavers are on the alert for early warning signals, and many have started taking precautions such as decontaminating their gear when going from cave to cave.
The sickness, which has resulted in massive bat die-offs up north, appears to be affecting all species of bats. So far, wildlife biologists have been unsuccessful in their search for answers. The federally endangered Indiana Bat in particular has been dealt a hefty blow since this alarming threat surfaced.
— Rebecca Bowe, contributing editor
Significant parts of the ecosystem are dying off rapidly. Bees are down in number globally, fish species that sustain migratory birds are down so fast that whole species of birds are dying in one season, frogs and salamanders have been declining for years, 189 species of North American birds are endangered, largely due to habitat destruction, hammerhead sharks are now endangered (shark fin soup), hippos are endangered, only a handful of tigers remain in India, the great apes have almost been wiped out in Africa (‘bush meat’), irreplaceable trees with medicinal value have been logged out of existence, virtually all of the 20 million albatrosses that flock to Midway Island show plastic in their systems (1/3 of their chicks are born dead) due to the ‘island’ of plastic larger than North America floating in the Pacific and on and on.
Mankind is systematically and calculatingly killing this planet. That is, greed, selfishness and an idiotic notion that man is somehow entitled to ruin the world is hastening its demise. And still, the dominant species in this country, homo sapiens stupidicus, insists on politicizing something as non-political as environmental preservation (“you want to reduce plastic bags? Must be a leftist Commie hippie).
Tragic beyond belief.