Bat deaths could cost US economy billions: study

[lonestarnot]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/31/bat-deaths-could-cost-us-economy-billions-study/

WASHINGTON – Call them creepy little creatures if you like, but insect-munching bats are so valuable to US agriculture that their deaths could cost the economy billions of dollars per year, experts said Thursday.

A fungal disease known as white nose syndrome, combined with the rise in wind turbines which can ensnare the dark fliers, have killed off more than a million of the bug predators in North America since 2006.

Their deaths mean the elimination of an important natural pesticide which is worth at least 3.7 billion dollars per year to farmers, said the study by US and South African researchers in the journal Science.

[Lucian]

1. I like how they add in "combined with the rise in wind turbines..."

when it's the fungus that's causing most of the deaths.

:eyes:

[AndyTiedye]

2. Bats Should be Able to HEAR Wind Turbines

I can't imagine how anything with the excellent hearing that bats have could possibly fly into a windmill.

[mikekohr]

8. This is a Red Herring, fungal infection is killing the vast majority of bats

the small percentage of bats killed by the wind turbines are killed by compression of air near the spinning blades not by colliding with the blades or the towers.

[lonestarnot]

12. I have no idea.

[madinmaryland]

3. This really concerns me. We have an invasion of stink bugs here in MD and

bats seem to be the only ones that will eat the infernal things.

[SpiralHawk]

7. Stink Bugs (R) are like unto a Biblical plague (R)

[lonestarnot]

9. Dat's a stank bug? I thought they were bigger, round and black, not green?

:shrug:

[GliderGuider]

4. And what is it going to cost the bats?

I guess some people only get interested in a problem unless it affects their bank accounts, the web of life be damned.

[hatrack]

10. But they get in womens' hair! Dracula! Rabies! AIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

:eyes:

[xchrom]

5. with the way Teh Bernanke prints money -- does money have any meaning?

serious problem here though -- this adds pressure to small farmers who were getting a good service for free.

[The2ndWheel]

6. If people actually think of bats as a pesticide

then no wonder we have such problems. But, that's the agricultural mind for ya.

[KittyWampus]

13. As a gardener and naturalist who prefers organic- I absolutely think of bats as "pesticide"

Also, barn swallows who eat tons of mosquitos during the summer. And frogs, who eat pests in my garden.

The idiots who built summer homes in the Northwest Woods here (bay side and VERY wet ground) want spraying for mosquitos. It is so stupid.

[underseasurveyor]

14. But they are. Bats eat millions and millions of bugs every night.

And they are important pollenators too.

[The2ndWheel]

15. I can't find bats in any definition of pesticide

Bats eating what bats eat doesn't make them a pesticide.

[underseasurveyor]

16. Oh geezus

Literally speaking you are correct, bats are not a chemical killing agent = a "pesticide"

But I'm hoping you get the gist of what is at issue where bats are concerned.

[KittyWampus]

11. Nothing creepy about bats, IMO. I was devastated when my cat caught one. Impressed. but heartbroken.