Across New England, bat colonies are dying off at an unprecedented rate from a malady known as “white-nose” syndrome. The disease can be recognized by patches of white fungus on the animals’ muzzles. Rather then being in deep hibernation, as they should be in February, biologists from the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department observed emaciated bats clustered toward the entrance of the Aeolus Cave in Dorset, Vermont, the largest wintering habitat for bat populations in New England. Other bats were flying outside the cave entrance and dead carcasses littered the snow. As reported in the Burlington Free Press, “Biologists do not yet understand what is killing the creatures — only that they have never seen this before. The dead bats are emaciated, as though starving. A white fungus furs their noses. Autopsies show lung congestion, as though they had pneumonia. Whatever the cause, it kills with deadly efficiency. Bat populations have plummeted more than 90 percent in the two New York caves where the syndrome was first identified last winter.”
White nose syndrome has been spreading in New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and other areas of Vermont. Biologists are mystified as to what is causing the malady. Bats consume enormous quantities of insects during the summer months and are considered very important to controlling pests that damage crops and spread disease.
Honeybees are disappearing nationwide for unknown reasons. Since 2006, beekeepers have reported on what has become known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Apparently healthy bees have set out from their hives in large numbers and then they don’t return. The Natural Resources Defense Council reports that approximately one third of all the honeybee colonies in the country are gone. Pollination from honeybees is essential to some $15 billion of crops, including almonds, apples, broccoli, carrots, and avocados. Research continues, but the cause of colony collapse remains a mystery.
Studies and surveys compiled by Audubon show a dramatic decline in common birds (from 50 to 80 percent), including meadowlarks, field sparrows, terns, hummingbirds, and herons. They comment:
The wide variety of birds affected is reason for concern. Populations of meadowlarks and other farmland birds are diving because of suburban sprawl, industrial development, and the intensification of farming over the past 50 years.
Greater Scaup and other tundra-breeding birds are succumbing to dramatic changes to their breeding habitat as the permafrost melts earlier and more temperate predators move north in a likely response to global warming. Boreal forest birds like the Boreal Chickadee face deforestation from increased insect outbreaks and fire, as well as excessive logging, drilling, and mining.
The “canary in the coal mine” metaphor has been used for decades to convey environmental risk: when the sensitive canaries succumbed to toxic gas exposure within the mine, the miners could flee to fresh air. As toxins spread and environmental degradation accelerates, we’re now getting a whole new group of potential metaphors. The white-nosed bat in the cave. The honeybee that never returns to the hive. The songbirds that no longer sing.
Searching Dogpile using the terms “species decline” brings up an alarming list of threatened species and indications of declining biodiversity. Prairie chickens. Gopher tortoises. Emperor penguin colonies have been diminished by as much as 50 percent by a combination of overfishing and climate change.
An odd little movie from 1971, The Hellstrom Chronicle, blended a documentary film style with touches of science fiction to create a curiously engaging epic battle being fought between humans and insects (the only two populations on the increase around the globe). [Spoiler: it looks like the insects are going to win.] Now the science fiction aspects of that film are looking more like reality every day.
Faced with the monumental destruction of many of the species with which we share this planet, the natural reaction may be to sink into despair or paint a sign proclaiming “The End is Nigh” and start picketing on the street corner. The scope of the problems can be completely immobilizing and inaction typically breeds despair. How do you respond when the magnitude of the challenge is unprecedented and the destruction around the world continues to increase?
Surprisingly, there are positive signs. In Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken writes about a massive worldwide movement, made up largely of individuals and small groups, that is rising, like nature, to address environmental and social justice causes. Flying under the radar of most of the media and not in the scripts of the politicians, this movement gives hope that humanity can rectify the mistakes of the past and lead us to a gentler, healthier future.
Another minister of hope in a world beset by intractable problems is Rebecca Solnit, whose book Hope in the Dark offers a notable revelation: yes, grassroots activism really can change the world and, in case you’ve forgotten how, here are some examples of changes that nobody expected. An essay extending her thoughts on this topic appeared in TomDispatch.com, Acts of Hope: Challenging Empire on the World Stage. A quote from that essay:
The world gets better. It also gets worse. The time it will take you to address this is exactly equal to your lifetime, and if you're lucky you don't know how long that is. The future is dark. Like night. There are probabilities and likelihoods, but there are no guarantees.
So it goes…
The photograph of the bats at sunrise is by Laura Grace and is presented under a Creative Commons license.
