Join the resistance; fight the fungus!

Baturday News is a weekly blog written by Rachael, a high school student, bat advocate, and Save Lucy volunteer. Rachael’s interest in bats was sparked by the big brown bats that used the outside of her former home for a winter roost. Rachael has been writing the Baturday News for over three years.

A photograph of a littel brown bat who lives at Save Lucy headquarters.
Nugget, the little brown bat who lives at Save Lucy, represents her vanishing species.

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a good week! I am excited because I have a long weekend this weekend and next! That’s right, I have Monday and Friday off, so I only have a 3 day week! Isn’t that awesome?

I found a really good article about how populations of little brown bats in New York have been stabilizing. I first read an article about this about a month ago, but the article I found this time gives much more information. Apparently, the bats in New York have been able to reduce the amount of the fungus that causes WNS on their skin. So far, only the little brown bats in New York are showing this ability. The bats in Virginia and Illinois haven’t been so lucky, even though WNS was discovered in those states at around the same time as New York. The scientists aren’t sure why the bats in New York have begun to show resistance to the fungus. They think that maybe the bat populations in New York were larger to begin with. This would give them more genetic diversity. More genetic diversity could give them a greater ability to adapt. Scientists don’t know if other bat populations will be able to develop the resistance. They also don’t know if other bat species will be able to adapt. Hopefully the other bats will be able to adapt soon. If you want to read the article, you can find it here.

I hope everyone has a good week. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr Day! The next time I write, we’ll have a new president. I hope that President Obama enjoys his last week in office.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Copyright © 2021 Bat Conservation & Rescue of Virginia. All rights reserved.