Chuck Porter wrote:Last night John Tudek posted:The evidence that it was a bat that brought it is circumstantial only.. It goes along this line:
1. New York City is the closest, largest port to Europe.
2. Albany is the closest regional distribution center to NYC.
3. Containers aren't opened until they reach a regional center (and are split up into smaller shipments).
4. In the years following 9/11, monitoring of imports dwindled (with a low in about 2005, coincident with the exposure of bats (which manifested in Feb 2006).
5. Commercial caves are frequently the most photographed, leading them to be preferentially selected as the initial site. (which means it may have been in a couple other caves, but there is no documentation).
Just to clarify: The Hudson River is dredged 30 feet deep to the Port of Albany, which receives 60 or 80 ocean-going ships a year. From there it's 33 miles to Howes Cave. So a European bat could have jumped ship and flown to Howes Cave.
The bats with WNS in Feb 2006 were photographed by a caver in the old Howes Cave section, downstream of the Howe Caverns tourist operation. Always-on exhaust fans move air from the tourist section into this downstream section. There are some gaps around the fans but it's unlikely that a bat would fly into the tourist section, let alone be touched by a European tourist with G.d. spores.
Thanks for that bit of (often overlooked) info, Chuck. I had suspected that to be the case, but was not certain.
If I recall correctly, Howe's Cavern has a downstream, wild entrance. Also, the reason for the exhaust fans are that the downstream entrance opens into a (possibly still active) quarry. At one point in the Howe Cavern history there was blasting in the quarry that went awry, sending noxious fumes towards the commercial cave and (I believe) killing 2 employees. This was due to the chimney effect in a cave with two entrances. Ever since then, the cave management has pushed all the air downstream.
Hazel,
thank you immensely for taking time out of your very busy schedule to clarify those points and give us some additional insight into the process. The Mycology paper sounds interesting as well. I will put it on my reading list. Cavers, like all biological creatures, adapt to their surrounding environments. :) Kicking and screaming, we adapt. lol.
John Tudek