US Lumber Industry Fights PA over WNS bat listings

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US Lumber Industry Fights PA over WNS bat listings

Postby PYoungbaer » Mar 11, 2013 4:55 pm

Pennsylvania timber industry is up in arms over the proposed state listing of bats hit hard by WNS. The PA Game Commission (PGC) proposed the listing to help several species recover from the impact of WNS. One key point PGC stresses is that state listing helps avoid federal listing, which is even more restrictive and cumbersome for commercial interests.

The initial proposal landed with a flurry of publicity, that quickly became controversial and adversarial, with industry on one side and environmentalists on the other. Industry reps went to their legislators, who leaned on PGC to stop the process. PGC is now working to educate parties to what state listing might actually mean, rather than what parties on either side think it means. Dozens of representative have been invited to a meeting to try to work through the issues and find common ground.

Although it's not mentioned specifically in this article, one proposal of interest to cavers is to close caves used as hibernacula in the winter to avoid disturbing the surviving bats, helping to give them the best chance to recover and rebuild the population to the extent it can. Cavers have long know to avoid hibernating bats, so that proposal seems quite reasonable. Here's the full story:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-1 ... tates.html
PYoungbaer
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