Hellhole 2013 - Good and very bad news

[PYoungbaer]

Just got the final report from Craig Stihler, West Virginia Department of Natural Resources.

First, the good news: Virginia Big-eared bats simply aren't getting WNS. Not a single bat in 2010, nor again this winter showed any signs of WNS. While the 2013 VBE population census declined from 2010, it was still up more than 50% over 2007:

2013: 7,640;
2010: 10,025;
2007: 5,006.

West Virginia DNR's Craig Stihler said, "Summer counts at maternity colonies indicate the population is increasing. The decline this winter is probably due to some of the bats being in another portion of the cave we do not know about."

Now, the bad news: overall, the total bat population in Hellhole has declined to just 12,673, down from over 112,000, or an overall decline of 90%. Of the Little Brown bat population, once by far the most numerous at around 90,000, and at 38,155 in 2010, only 2,461 remain.

Similarly, the federally-endangered Indiana bat, declined steeply from 18,557 in 2010 to only 2,540 this year.

Other species totaled just 32 bats. While the Virginia Big-eared news is good, the data for the two hard-hit species is very bad. Anyone who thinks that WNS has slowed, or that large mortalities are not still occurring is simply mistaken.

It does appear that the effect on Indianas is delayed compared to Little Browns. That does not bode well for the rest of the Indiana hibernacula surveys going on this winter/spring. Stay tuned for more on that as data is reported.

Here's a link to the WVDNR Hellhole data summary: http://www.caves.org/WNS/Hellhole2013Summary.pdf