Georgia's First Indiana Bat Colony Since 1966 Found

[Cheryl Jones]

State's first Indiana bat colony discovered
Georgia Wild
May 4, 2012
Georgia Department of Natural Resources

Before last month, the last time an Indiana bat had been seen in Georgia, LBJ was president.

That footnote changed April 14 when private consultants tracked one of the federally endangered bats from a Tennessee cave to a pine snag at Georgia’s Rich Mountain Wildlife Management Area, on the Chattahoochee National Forest near Blue Ridge. Even better, researchers monitoring the female bat daily since have counted another 13 bats using one of the same roost trees.

How many of the 13 are Indiana bats is not known, although the females do form larger groups in summer. Considering the number of bats and the time the Indiana bat outfitted with the mini transmitter has spent in the area, DNR biologist Trina Morris thinks the find represents the first maternity colony of these imperiled bats in Georgia.

Read on
http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletin ... DNR-3e82b5

[graveleye]

That's pretty cool.

But does this mean that the state is going to shut down all pine snags?

[tncaver]

That's pretty cool.

But does this mean that the state is going to shut down all pine snags?

Probably the CBD will petition Washington DC to halt all logging in Georgia due to endangered bats roosting in trees now.

[rebelfirefighter]

I can't believe a bat crossed state lines... The media makes out like only cavers with muddy boots do that.

[driggs]

This is seriously fascinating news that raises a lot of questions:

* Are environmental conditions changing such that the Indiana Bat's summer range is expanding southward? For example, the USDA's 2012 plant hardiness zone map generally raised the summer temperature across the US by 5-degrees.

* Is the Federal protection under the Endangered Species Act allowing the Indiana to recover such that it is thriving and expanding to fill regions where it became locally extinct?

* Is White-Nose Syndrome increasing the migration range of bats as they flee the winter horror, in effect, spreading it even further and faster?

* Would this new roost have ever been discovered under the USFWS's proposed new Indiana Bat Survey Protocol, which would essentially eliminate having actual bats in hand to positively identify to species and perform radio tracking?

Much of what we know about any bats' roosting and foraging behaviors are known only because the Indiana Bat receives Federal protection under the ESA and requires environmental impact studies and management plans for land use.

[wyandottecaver]

The full report has not been released, but they also tracked the TN bats to another neighboring southern state....

It will be interesting to see how this affects GA forestry practices...

it should be noted this is a maternity colony, and given the fact that many non-radioed bats were found as well, probably represents a case where the bats have been there, but no one was really looking hard there.

increasing temps would tend to expand the range north not south. Sodalis numbers nationally would not seem to support a large population boom.

It would be interesting to see how GD fares on bats in very warm summer climates.

The new USFWS protocol is a joke, designed to lower the cost of monitoring and let biologists "listen" for bats from behind a desk.