Billions of dollars bats at risk

Bats mean big money for American farmers. Their nightly bug mampfende saves US agriculture between $3.7 to 53 billion dollars per year on pesticides and crop losses.

U.S. Geological Survey, in science, published study put a dollar sign on the offer for free bats. The study found that bats are high rollers in the game of insect control. But the researchers are concerned.

Bats are dying out in unprecedented numbers, never. A bat-Plage, called the white nose syndrome, more than 70% of the population has wiped out bat in some of the 16 States and 3 Canadian provinces, where it was found. And the fungal disease spreads West from New York, where it was discovered in areas with higher agricultural issues such as Middle West.

Bats in the Midwest are already getting clobbered by wind turbines. The turbines producing energy cause air pressure changes that lung damage bat. You also the flying mammals from the sky with their fast spinning clap sound.

"In addition, because the agricultural value of bats in the Northeast is small compared with other parts of the country, such losses could be substantial in the extensive agricultural areas in the Midwest and the Great Plains, where wind energy development is booming and the fungus has recently been responsible for white-nose syndrome", said Tom Kunz, Professor of ecology at Boston University and co-author of the study in a press release of USGS.

Large images: wind power without the blades

The combination of white nose syndrome and wind turbines the bats give a one to two stamps, which could lead to serious consequences over the next five years, when the death rate continued unabated.

For example, a previous study by Kunz and colleagues are estimated that 33,000 to 111,000 bats die every year by 2020. And this is only in the mountainous region of the mid-Atlantic Highlands, and only by wind turbines.

"We hope that our analysis gets people thinking more about the value of bats and why its important conservation", said Gary McCracken, University of Tennessee Professor and co-author of the study in a press release of USGS.

"The bottom line is that the natural pest control benefits of bats save a lot of money, farmers," said McCracken.

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Figure 1: insect-eating Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) in a Texas evening sky. (Paul Cryan, USGS)

Picture bat with white muzzle 2: in Pennsylvania, a hibernating little brown typical for white-nose syndrome. (Greg Turner, Pennsylvania Game Commission, USGS)

Figure 3: A bat Croatia (ANA Jan?ar, Wikimedia Commons) killed by collision with a wind turbine on island of PAG,

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