WHITE-NOSE KILLS HUNDREDS OF BATS IN LACKAWANNA COUNTY
Several hundred little brown bats are dead from White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) in Lackawanna County, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission is looking to residents for help uncovering other sites where this deadly disorder may have surfaced.
Game Commission biologists had been uncovering signs of what appeared to be an impending WNS outbreak in Pennsylvania since last spring. Over the past two years, the disorder has killed more than 90 percent of some wintering bat colonies where it first surfaced in New York and spread through New England. Its confirmation in Pennsylvania and New Jersey came in the past two weeks, but Pennsylvania had a surprisingly unique distinction among the states where WNS has been documented; Pennsylvania bats were not leaving their wintering quarters - caves and mines - and weren't dying. Unfortunately, that no longer can be said.
Last week, bats were found dead outside of an abandoned mine near Carbondale by a citizen who later reported the findings to the agency. Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer Chris Skipper visited the site immediately and confirmed the findings. Bats were dead on the ground; flying from the mine; dropping from the sky. Then on Groundhog Day, agency biologist Greg Turner found bats flying from another Lackawanna County mine near Throop. They shouldn't have been emerging for another six weeks.
For more information, please visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission - State Wildlife Management Agency website:
http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=11&Q=175864
