All
A recent Diane Rheme segment on NPR said of WNS " the disease has all but wiped
out the bat population of the northeast".
WNS only affects cave bats and not migratory tree bats. But by surveys, ~450,
000 cave bats have been reduced to ~45,000. Some hibernacula were reduced from
10s of thousands to hundreds. IMHO, extrapolating that into the real world is
sobering.
The most recent science I know of, which reports an 88% decline of cave bats,
is at:
http://sz0100.wc.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/TurnerReederColeman%20BRN%20WNS%202011.pdf?auth=co&loc=en_US&id=243198&part=2
Please sign the action alert.
Google on WNS if you are not familiar with it.
And thanks to the VSO for providing this listserve,
John Fox
Arlington
----- Original Message -----
From: "Youngbaer4@xxxxxxx" <youngbaer4@xxxxxxx>
To: "Northeast Bat Working Group" <nebwg-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 12:56:45 PM
Subject: [nebwg-l] WNS Action Alert
All,
If you haven't seen this from other sources:
Action Alert: Please sign an on-line "We The People" petition to help get
research funding for White Nose Syndrome in the federal budget.
The NSS is joining Bat Conservation International and others in requesting
President Obama to include funding for WNS in the Administration's 2013 budget.
The mechanism for doing this is a "We The People" petition, operated by the
White House ( http://wh.gov/TNK ;). We need 25,000 names by November 25 to pass
the established benchmark for the staff to recognize the issue and evaluate it
for the President. The petition language is fairly general; specifics can be
dealt with once the threshold is reached and staff begins to focus on the
details.
The petition can be found here:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/fund-fight-against-white-nose-syndrome-president%E2%80%99s-fiscal-year-2013-budget/jH8Z4Fsl
If you are already have a whitehouse.gov account click "Sign In" enter your
information and then click "Sign this Petition." If you are new to the
whitehouse.gov webpage click "Create an Account." You will be sent an automated
email to verify your new account and then you can return and click "Sign this
Petition."
WNS is likely to be with us for some time, and this is the best way to help
ensure ongoing long-term funding. In the short-term, please donate to the NSS'
WNS Rapid Response Fund. We continue to have research funding requests for more
immediate projects and need to replenish the fund:
http://www.caves.org/WNS/Rapid_Response.shtml ;
We're about 1/10 of the way there, so please share liberally. Thank you.
Peter Youngbaer
WNS Liaison
National Speleological Society
P.S. If the link fails to operate, cut and paste into the URL line. The links
are correct, but I've had some reports of difficulties - possibly specific to
personal computers.
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