Our friends in the Canadian Flathead report that Flathead Valley bat populations could prove valuable in studying a disease that has killed some 7 million bats in North America . . .
A new study concludes that B.C.’s Flathead River Valley could play an important role in understanding White Nose Syndrome, a mysterious disease that has nearly wiped out two North American bat species.
The first formal inventory of bats in the Flathead, conducted by bat biologist Dr. Cori Lausen over a four-day period in June 2013, detected both species of highly-endangered bat in the Flathead: little brown myotis and northern myotis. (This is the first recording of northern myotis in southeast B.C. and it will be confirmed with follow-up study.)
White Nose Syndrome, responsible for the recent deaths of almost seven million North American bats, is a poorly-understood fungal disease that kills bats while they hibernate…