I noticed two bats flying around our backyard shortly after dusk last night. That used to be a fairly common sight at our place on summer evenings, but last night it was a particularly welcome sight, given the peril I know bats face these days.
Then in Science magazine today, a team of researchers from Boston, Santa Cruz, Albany, Harrisburg, Pa., and Concord, N.H., led by Winifred Frick of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University, confirmed the bats' dire situation:
White-nose syndrome affecting hibernating bats "is predicted to lead to regional extinction of the little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus), previously one of the most common bat species in North America."
There used to be about 6.5 million little brown bats in the Northeast. Soon there could be none. The infectious fungus already has killed millions of bats.
The extinction of a species in our own time, right before our very eyes. What a dreadful thought.
Not to bring things down to an overly personal level, but I've always like bats. Wary though I've always been about them -- such as when I've found them squeezed in between a window and storm window, resting -- I've liked having them around, knowing that they eat mosquitoes.
I loathe mosquitoes, which I seem to attract like a magnet, and ever since West Nile virus appeared here in 1999, I've feared them, too.
Seeing the bats last night got me thinking about mosquitoes. We've had remarkably few so far this summer (knock on wood).
Earlier this week I read that a few cases of West Nile virus had been found around the state -- mostly in New Haven and Fairfield counties, but also in Meriden -- so this afternoon I checked in with Theodore Andreadis, the state's chief medical entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.
"Overall numbers of mosquitoes are considerably lower from what we might typically see," Ted said, adding that's likely a direct result of the high heat and dry weather we've been having.
But, he cautioned, the conditions certainly are there for a build-up. Culex pipiens mosquitoes are the primary vector responsible for transmitting West Nile virus, and in this kind of climate, Ted said, they do exceptionally well.
The CAES tests mosquitoes from traps at 91 sites around the state -- close to 80,000 mosquitoes have been tested thus far this summer -- and West Nile has been found in mosquitoes in seven Connecticut towns: Bethel, Bridgeport, Meriden, Norwalk, Old Lyme, Stamford and West Haven.
In most cases the infected mosquitoes in question have been Culex pipiens, though there have been infected Culex restuans and Culex salinarius mosquitoes, too.
Last year was a quiet one for West Nile, Ted said, because it was wet and cool and Culex pipiens sites were constantly being flushed out by the rains. "The populations never really got going."
This year, though, "the virus is heating up." Ted said two human cases already have been reported in New York this summer -- one in Nassau County and one in The Bronx -- "right on our doorstep."
What's a gardener to do? Just use some common sense.
If you're working outside, particularly around dusk, wear long-sleeved clothing and pants, if possible. Use some repellent. If mosquitoes get aggressive, go indoors.
If you're just sitting on your deck, you might want to put out a fan: Air moving at a fairly strong current helps keeps mosquitoes away, Ted said.
We've been using mosquito dunks with Bacillus thuringiensis in our bird bath, and the birds don't seem to mind a bit. I also use a stiff brush to give the bird bath a scrub every few days, but Ted said you simply need to dump out the water from a birdbath pretty regularly. "Mosquito larvae that fall on the ground will not develop."
If you have an ornamental garden pool, it shouldn't be a problem, he said, as long as you keep the water moving. You might also want to "throw some fish in there -- koi or goldfish -- they'll gobble the mosquitoes up."
And, if you've got a rain barrel, make sure it has a screen, or put one on it.
A Bat's Diet
What really surprised me, though, was learning that bats actually have very little impact on the mosquito poulation. Ted said moths and beetles, not mosquitoes, consitute the majority of a bat's diet. (I guess the mosquitoes are just a snack for bats. Just as I'm a snack for mosquitoes.)
So the bats' demise is probably more a problem for farmers than for mosquito-bite-prone people like me.
But we're all connected. I am alarmed that the bats might disappear altogether.
PHOTOS AT TOP AND MIDDLE, COURTESY OF SCIENCE MAGAZINE
PHOTO OF CULEX PIPIENS MOSQUITO, VIA WIKIPEDIA