New money available to fight bat threatening WNS

[psteward]

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/dec ... -the-bats/

[tncaver]

It was my intention to say nothing regarding this report until I opened the link and saw an outright false statement in the very first paragraph under the picture of the bat. That falsehood stated "the die-off of an estimated half-million bats from white-nose syndrome in the Northeast has frightening implications for Tennessee, which has an estimated 9,000 known bat caves".

There are over 9000 caves in TN but the majority have no bats or almost none. The number of "bat caves" in TN is way lower than the total
number of caves in the state. The Nashville and Central Basin Grottoes compiled a Significant Bat Cave list in 2003 which had only 90 caves
listed. I refuse to sit here and remain quiet when I see blatantly false information being broadcast on a national website.

I have sent an email to the author of the article to inform her of the error.

[BrianC]

It was my intention to say nothing regarding this report until I opened the link and saw an outright false statement in the very first paragraph under the picture of the bat. That falsehood stated "the die-off of an estimated half-million bats from white-nose syndrome in the Northeast has frightening implications for Tennessee, which has an estimated 9,000 known bat caves".

There are over 9000 caves in TN but the majority have no bats or almost none. The number of "bat caves" in TN is way lower than the total
number of caves in the state. The Nashville and Central Basin Grottoes compiled a Significant Bat Cave list in 2003 which had only 90 caves
listed. I refuse to sit here and remain quiet when I see blatantly false information being broadcast on a national website.

I have sent an email to the author of the article to inform her of the error.

I e-mailed mrs Sohn a few years ago regarding what she wrote about WNS, and when she found out I was a caver, she broke contact! Good Luck! John.

[David Grimes]

I guess that is just the mentality of some people. It is sad that someone who writes "news" articles for a living is not even slightly interested in the truth. I guess it is just non-caver mentality really, most non-cavers assume that every cave is full of bats.

[tncaver]

I guess that is just the mentality of some people. It is sad that someone who writes "news" articles for a living is not even slightly interested in the truth. I guess it is just non-caver mentality really, most non-cavers assume that every cave is full of bats.

More than likely that writer has received false information from a so called "intellectual lawyer" or some other "official". I use those terms loosely. Some people believe anything they hear from someone with a degree and a title.