Happy day after Mother's Day! I'm going to post my tidbits quickly - I'm having too much fun with Bonnie here to take too long on the blog.
- Extinction is a possibility for North American bats. "White-nose syndrome" has killed more than 1 million bats in nine states from Vermont to Virginia since 2007. Bats help nature maintain an ecological balance by eating tons of insects each year. But last month an annual inspection on hibernating bats in a large mine here in New Jersey yielded a count of only 750 bats, down from the normally 26,000 to 29,000 that are usually counted there each year. "White-nose syndrome" causes bats to awake early from hibernation and go in search of bugs that have not yet hatched, causing the bats to starve and freeze to death. Also a strange white fungus appears on the bats' noses which may be causing scar tissue and may make female bats unable to reproduce. This double-whammy of starvation and non-reproduction could be a fatal blow to the bat population.
- Bushmeat smuggling is a problem in the Newark airport. For those unaware, bushmeat is meat butchered from wild species, legal or illegal, and including elephant, monkey, antelope and rodents. It is favored by many Africans and used in many of their native dishes. Authorities consider it to be a potential carrier of zoonotic (animal-to-human) viruses like Ebola, HIV or monkeypox. Yikes!
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