SusanCampriello: My Works

Bat man Al Hicks on the white-nose syndrome
The Daily Mail
Aug. 28, 2009

New York State has only one expert working on the white-nose syndrome that has claimed the lives of bats in the Northeastern United States, Conservationist Alan Hicks.

(A handful of State workers do help out with research, as well as two seasonal technicians, but other than that, Al’s it.)

I spoke with Hicks this week to learn what I could about the battle against the spread of the syndrome, which was first identified in 2006 at Howe Caverns, in Schoharie County, and whether the mortality rates in Greene County had leveled off. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Greene County bat populations were killed by the syndrome during the 2006-07 winter.

Hicks told me that 95 percent of the region’s bats have died in the last two to three years. Last year, he said, the southern reaches of the fungus was Sullivan County, N.Y. Now the fungus has been found as far south as central Virginia.

Population estimates are based on winter surveys so it is difficult to know how the population has shifted over this summer. Bat populations are only concentrated during the winter. But even winter counts cannot accurately reflect a colony’s death rate, Hicks said.

“There is no point at which you could say ‘this was this year’s mortality,’ because it is a continuum right through winter, probably to mid-May,” he said.

Also, Hicks said, bats may move around to different parts of a cave from year-to-year.

Hicks said groups monitoring bat populations during the summer have reported data that fits with the winter observations: “The numbers have gone way down.”

When asked for ideas on how the fungus has been moving, Hicks replied, “quickly.”

The fungus has spread, he said, by bats from the north encountering bats from the south. But, he added, people could be carrying the fungus into caves and infecting bats.

“We don’t know how easy it is to spread that way,” he said. “It is certainly possible.”

I asked Hicks what effect the syndrome may be having on insect populations, and, in turn, organisms that depend on bats or insects. He said discerning that is difficult. Quantitative studies on the question have not taken place here, in the wooded Northeast, he said. Insect populations can shift dramatically with changing weather patterns, but they can reproduce quickly.

“To tease out the difference between those increases that are the responsibility of bats would probably cost more than it will cost to try to find a cure to his problem,” he said. “It is a huge, huge undertaking to try to do the sampling.”

He said so far, more than 500,000 bats have perished in New York State from the syndrome so far.

“That is a half-a-million animals that are not there eating night-flying insects,” he said. And a bat will eat roughly half of its own weight in insects every night.

Hicks said he and researchers in other states as well as in Quebec and Ontario have not found evidence of any kind of resistance yet, but that that evidence may just not be obvious yet.

Many hundreds of bats across the east have been brought into laboratories for all kinds of research and examinations, he said, but keeping bats alive in captivity is difficult.

“A lot of them have gone into labs, none of them have come out,” he said.

Hicks said that eventually he and other researchers will going to have large captive collections of bats.

He suggested perhaps an exotic bat species carrying the fungus was introduced into the United States from Europe.

“All the evidence we’ve collected so far suggests that it’s a fungal infection caused by a newly descried species and that this fungus is similar, if not identical, to a fungus in Europe that also lives on bats,” Hicks said. “The evidence has pointed that way more and more.”

The bat colony that long inhabited a building where I vacation in the lower Adirondacks was gone this summer. Have you noticed any new bat absences?

Emissions and forests
The Daily Mail
July 23, 2009

What does it mean for Greene?

In late June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The bill passed the House by only seven votes. Twenty-five of New York’s 29 representatives voted in favor of measure, one provision of which would establish a ‘Cap and Trade’ policy for carbon emissions.

The Senate is currently writing its own energy bill based on the House bill.

I spoke to folks at the Agroforestry Resource Center, in Acra, and some with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative about what the development of and passage of the bill could mean for industry and residents in New York and Greene County.

New York is one of ten states that have promised to cap carbon dioxide emissions from their power sectors and to require carbon dioxide emissions to decrease by 10% by 2018 as participants in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Emission permit auctions began in 2008. The fourth, and most recent sale was held in June and brought in $39.9 million for New York to use for energy efficient and renewable energy projects, the group announced. Data to show the effect RGGI has had on emissions is not yet available.

The bill would put a moratorium on the Initiative’s, well, initiative for six years.

According to a RGGI spokesman at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the organization can focus on other ways to lower greenhouse gas such as developing support and momentum for wind, solar and geothermal energy.

Andrew Turner, executive director of the Agroforestry Center, said the Senate bill could have implications for forest land ownership.

Rob Davies, a DEC forest manager, agreed. He said he hopes the Senate bill will go a step further than the House bill has, and recognize the carbon sequestering potential of forestlands in New York. According to DEC, more than 18 million acres in New York, or roughly 62% of the State, is forested. Davies said 85% of forest lands in New York are privately owned, so giving incentives to forest owners to manage their lands is “critically important.” He did not go into details.

Last week, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., argued this point in front of the Senate. She urged that the bill establish a carbon-offset program to be administered by the Department of Agriculture.

Not everyone agrees that a ‘Cap and Trade’ policy is a good fit for the country’s economy. And work in the Senate is not finished.

There is still time for changes to be made.

What do you think about the bill?