Now we are coming out of winter, what are the new 2011 WNS reported infected areas also what is the estimated bat die off in those areas?
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dfcaver wrote:The old areas of the Northeast continue to fill in, although there's not a lot of monitoring by state officials this past winter and spring. Western Pennsylvania has added five or six additional counties this winter.
As far as current infection rates, Ruth Cave, in Huntingdon County, usually had bat counts of over 2000. This spring the count found about 500 remaining bats; the vast majority -over 400- of these survivors were individually infected. Almost no dead bats in the cave. It appears each colony will experience their own infection curve. Although Huntingdon County was noted as having WNS in January 2010, this appears to be the year for massive dieoff in Ruth Cave. Assuming, as we must, that the bats who are WNS positive to the naked eye will die, the percentage of total, from the typical pre WNS counts, will be in 90 to 95% area. From 2000 to less than 100. Unfortunately, most of the those are probably carriers, and will die next winter, after infecting others all summer.
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