Several hundred little brown bats are dead from White-Nose Syndrome in Lackawanna County, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission is looking to residents for help uncovering other sites where this deadly disorder may have surfaced. Last week, bats were found dead outside of an abandoned mine near Carbondale by a citizen who later reported the findings to the agency. Game Commission Wildlife Conservation Officer Chris Skipper visited the site immediately and confirmed the findings. Bats were dead on the ground; flying from the mine; dropping from the sky. Then on Groundhog Day, agency biologist Greg Turner found bats flying from another Lackawanna County mine near Throop. They shouldn’t have been emerging for another six weeks. “Roughly 50 percent of the bats in the mine near Carbondale displayed the characteristic white fungus,” said Kevin Wenner, an agency biologist stationed at the agency’s Northeast Region office in Dallas. “Bats have been and are staging close to the entrance of the mine; some dying in the mine while others were flying around and dying outside on top of the snow. The bases of several trees near the mine entrance had piles of dead bats around them. Hundreds were visible on top of the most recent snow, so I suspect there are thousands of dead bats.”
White-nose Kills Hundreds Of Bats Near Abandoned Mines In Pennsylvania Previous story: White Nose Disease driving bats from caves
