Bats and Bees

The other night I was watching a PBS program about the American bat. An alarming number of bats are dying because of White Nose Syndrome (WNS). White fungus has been found growing on their muzzles and other parts of their bodies. They normally hibernate deep within the caves in winter to maintain a warm temperature but the bats infected with the white fungus hang closer to the entrance of the cave. They have low body weight and exhibit strange behavior. They are known to fly in the daytime during cold winter days when there aren't any insects to feed on or water to drink. Bats are nocturnal mammals that hibernate.

The fungus was first reportedly growing on bats in New York. The disease has since spread all the way south to Tennessee, and beyond. The fungus is killing huge populations of bats. 

You may not realize how important bats are to our ecosystem but they really are. Without bats to eat millions of insects during warm weather we would be more susceptible to diseases like malaria and typhoid. Bats eat mosquitoes, and moths, and other flying insects. For information on bats and how to build a bat house you can check out Benefits of Bats here.

This mysterious fungus is spreading across the United States. 

For years, we have heard about bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) spreading across the United States. Millions of bees just disappeared. It has been attributed to a loss or confusion of direction, or disease, or insecticides or herbicides. Bees are also being attacked by mites which weaken and kill off the hives. This new episode of lost colonies is just one more assault on nature's wonderful little pollinators and honey makers.

You probably think I am being overly melodramatic about bats and bees but every living creature in the ecosystem has a purpose. Without bees we wouldn't be able to pollinate enough of our crops and that would cause a food shortage. Without bats we would be eaten up by mosquitoes and it would become unbearable to work or play outdoors in warm weather.

I worry about the world in which we live and the destruction of this fragile cycle of life we depend on. 

DDT,  dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, was an efficient pesticide used to control malaria and typhus in World War II but was banned in 1972 after an environmentalist movement. It was devastating on the environment, particularly birds. Bald eagles were nearly extinct until the ban. Their eggs were so brittle that they couldn't survive because of the DDT. DDT was linked to cancer and diabetes in humans.

Nature seems to be turning on itself and destroying the very things we depend on to help and protect us.

Pine trees are infected with pine bark beetles across the south. We used to have plenty of pine trees on the hill behind our house and the ground was covered with pine needles. I loved the pine carpeting of the woods underneath the trees. The trees are infected with beetles. Now, Magnolia trees, hickory bushes (aka Chinese privet) and brambles are springing up underneath the pine trees that were there when we first came here. The pine trees are dying out and there aren't enough pine needles to cover the ground any more so other vegetation is taking over the undergrowth.

I don't know how to help the bees and bats and prevent the pine bore beetle but I hope we can figure something out or else we will all be in trouble. Instead of using chemicals we need to utilize nature's help.

Other diseases are infecting plants across America. One is attacking azaleas and other woody plants and trees in our environment. It is called Sudden Oak Disease (SOD). It can kill oak trees, rhododendrons, and many more indigenous plants. I'm beginning to believe Mother Nature is out of whack.

I've also noticed there aren't near as many lightning bugs as there were when I was a kid. They're disappearing too. When the plant life, and the insects, and mammals start disappearing you know we're in danger.

We depend on this planet to sustain us and provide for us. We are nature's gardeners. We need to take better care of earth. She's all we've got.

An article was posted on the Rome News Tribune on March 12, 2013. Deadly to Bats Confirmed in Northwest Georgia

I found this in Salon on May 1, 2013.  How Neglecting Bees Could Endanger Humans

White Nose Syndrome Cure*
http://news.discovery.com/animals/common-bacterium-cures-bats-white-nose-syndrome-150515.htm


orig. 10/13/11 
*edited 5/16/15

AS ALWAYS

PIO

I Can Feel It

Does anybody else feel like me? I feel like a balloon that is slowly leaking, losing my energy. When the sun was blazing, temperatures dancing around the hundred degrees Fahrenheit (37.77 degrees Celsius) mark on the thermometer, everyone was complaining about the heat but I felt alive and cheerful. The weather took a U-turn and dipped around seventy degrees Fahrenheit (21.11 degrees Celsius) after a couple of rainy days and cloudy skies. I don't know where my energy went. I need the sun! 


Scout came over and we sat on the carport enjoying the beautiful fall weather. Scout said he felt bad today and had a headache all day long. He was wondering if his headache stemmed from the change in the weather. I reminded him that Kim hadn't been feeling good, as well. She had been having headaches. 


I told him it could be the weather, or it could be a cycle. Sometimes people are sick because of allergies. It seems like people will become sick in cycles. Sometimes people will share similar symptoms and it could be a virus or something else those people were exposed to. I'm always wondering where some flu or virus or headache or other communicable disease came from. I am sort of germaphobic that way. Then I got to thinking, it might be the weather after all. 


What if the weather all over the world is fluctuating because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the radiation leak at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant in  Japan? What if it is affecting the entire world? I know you might be saying I'm a kook but think about it, the weather has been extreme across America this year. Climate change is affecting locations around the world.


I read an article about the government monitoring radiation levels in the soil and in the livestock across the USA. Radiation levels have risen drastically since the tsunami damaged the plant which leaked toxins into the atmosphere for weeks before they were able to contain the damage. 


Air currents carried radiation across the globe, raining down on the earth and sea, contaminating everything. Radiation levels near the nuclear plant were too high in vegetation and livestock for human consumption. Since the wind currents shifted to the east, the radiation fell in the Pacific Ocean and the west coast of America first. Radiation levels have increased across America. Rising radiation levels were detected all the way to  the east coast.


Radiation poisoning is a horrible deadly form of energy and mankind doesn't have the power to prevent natural disasters like tsunami's and earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Until they can predict those things I don't think we're responsible enough to control a meltdown. I prefer not to fry from radiation poisoning, but that's just my opinion. I'm not entirely convinced that microwave ovens are safe, either. 


Imagine an invisible microwave. cooking on high, with the door open. That's how I imagine the nuclear power plant meltdown. Between the radiation leak from Japan and the BP Oil Leak in the Gulf of Mexico, I can imagine all the shrimp and fish and sharks cooking in black oil at the bottom of the sea. Yum, yum. 


No wonder the shrimp from Red Lobster is so small. All the good ones are all gone because of the toxic combination of petroleum and radiation poisoning. I shudder to think of the quality and quantity of seafood in the future.


I wonder how the people in Japan are surviving and if all their food and water is being shipped in from other countries. I hope they are receiving generous aid from around the world. They were crushed in the tsunami and it will take a lot of help and time to recover.


I hope the world reconsiders their desire to harness nuclear power and rejects it. There are so many renewable sources of energy that we should explore instead. I don't know why we don't utilize solar energy, among other things. I'd like to have solar panels on my rooftop making electricity.


I feel like somebody has flipped a switch. It was summer. Now it's fall. The rain knocked down loose leaves, carpeting the ground. The frogs and crickets are singing their summer songs in the night. The sound drifts on a breeze through my window.


I'll try not to worry too much about nuclear fallout and global warming if you promise to think about it a little. Don't you think we humans are bad about soiling our own nests? Earth is our global nest and I think we are fools and small minded when we don't consider the greater good of the planet. It's our only home. 


People have such short attention spans that they forget about the damage to the Gulf of Mexico and they have probably already put Japan's nuclear disaster out of their minds but it would behoove us all to pay attention and realize the damage we have done to the earth. Mother Nature is forgiving and, over time, things will probably eventually right itself but wouldn't it be nice to save the earth for our children and grandchildren and their future children, too.


Like Hootie the owl says, "Give a hoot. Don't pollute!"

(I guess I'm just an old worry wart.)

**********

On another note, I'd like to announce that J.R. Martinez is going to be a contestant on Dancing With The Stars. He was a wounded veteran who was injured  by an IED in Iraq.  J.R. moved to Dalton Georgia when he was a teenager and attended and graduated from Dalton High School.  

J.R. Martinez beat out scores of contestants for the part of 'Brot' on ABCD's All My Children soap opera when they were featuring a story about wounded veterans. J.R. Martinez is a real American hero and he has proven to be a talented actor. I admire his spirit and his character. He is a motivational speaker for wounded veterans and others.  Please consider giving him your vote if you watch Dancing With The Stars. I'm sure he'll give his all.

AS ALWAYS

PIO

(Who knows what this means?)


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