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DORSET, Vt. (AP) — Vermont's little brown bat population could be stabilizing or even growing despite being devastated by disease, researchers said.
Scott Darling, a wildlife biologist with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, told the Rutland Herald (http://bit.ly/1epjFVm)the state has been monitoring Aeolus Cave in southwestern Vermont for at least 10 years to see how white-nose syndrome is affect bats.
The disease is named for a white fungus it often leaves on bat noses.
Aeolus Cave has been the focus of Vermont's bat population study, largely because it is the only significant bat hibernation cave left in the state. Darling said.
He said bats have been tagged with tiny transponders recently, and now researchers can monitor when bats are entering and leaving the cave. That data should give some insights on the survival rate of little brown bats, he said.
Early data indicates the bat population is "significant" in Aeolus Cave. Darling said researchers do not know exactly why that is — especially considering other bat habitats have been almost completely decimated by white-nose syndrome.
"We don't know if that's because many of them survived, there were far more bats there than we thought or whether actually bats are beginning to congregate in some of the better hibernacula" — or hibernation caves, Darling said.
The state has been conducting an assessment of the cave. Darling says a status report will not be released until the end of the summer, because the summer bat colony season has not ended yet.
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Information from: Rutland Herald, http://www.rutlandherald.com/
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