"Creatures of the night... Shut up!"

This Halloween, that most memorable comedic Dracula line might just hold true for two of the holiday's most iconic symbols:

Bats

The LA Times, Boston Globe, Scientific American, and Reuters all covered a new report on white-nosed syndrome today. It's like a mash-up of "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Andromeda Strain" for bats...a story about a scientific race against time to find out what is killing bats in caves throughout the eastern United States. And as if a story about a bat plague is not already perfect fodder for this holiday, how about this gag-me-with-a-spoon quote about the tell-tale sign of infection to clinch it?

"It grows slowly just like mold grows on your cottage cheese in the refrigerator," said David Blehert, director of diagnostic microbiology at the US Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin and the lead author of the report.

Paints a picture, eh? Unfortunately, it is a scary one.

Like the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder phenomenon, which we've talked about a lot on Switchboard, there are real, and damaging, impacts to you and me should bat and bee populations drop. There is significant impact to our diet. And, in the case of bats, potential for increased disease and loss of plant diversity.

Wolves

We've talked a lot about the Bush administration's attempted "do-over" on de-listing wolves in the Northern Rockies. The executive summary would be, it's a sham...

But we have not talked about the dire picture of that population that is just now starting to take shape. Wolves are dying in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. And in alarming numbers. According to wildlife officials, a disease, such as distemper, might be responsible. It has killed off most of this year's wolf pups. Adults are dying too---and expressing an unusual amount of aggression against each other. Seems a bad time to remove Endangered Species Act protections, eh?

I am sure that we will be covering this issue very closely on Switchboard in the coming months. But it shows clearly that now is not the time for slipshod, ill-conceived policies that will not help the situation for wolves, ranchers, landowners, or nature lovers any time soon. But, in the 11th hour of the Bush administration, that's what we seem to be getting.

Taken together, things look pretty dark for creatures of the night right now...

Happy Halloween...

Photo by Bre Pettis - www.BrePettis.com