The Sixth Extinction Chapter 10 - Elyonni Tordesillas

      Kolbert opens this chapter by talking about bats. She states that bats are known as "true hibernators. In the northeastern United States, the first bats to go into hibernation are little browns, according to her. In 2007, a team of biologists decided to count the number of bats in Albany, New York. In the winter, they climbed into caves with the expectation of seeing bats in hibernation. What they found instead was thousands of bats, seemingly lying dead on the ground, covered in a strange, powdery white substance. The next year, the scientists investigated the caves and again found freshly dead bats, covered in the same white substance. The bat die-off continued for years and spread to other states. Eventually, scientists learned that the white powder was a cold-loving fungus, Geomyces destructans, that is deadly to bats. Kolbert, who lives near the Albany bat caves, discovered that the lethal fungus had spread as far as West Virginia. She met with Al Hicks, one of the scientists who had discovered the dead bats in Albany. Hicks took Kolbert into the Adirondacks, the mountains where his team was conducting environmental tests. Hicks counted brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) and other endangered bat species. Many bats had the telltale white fungus growing on their bodies. As Kolbert investigates the deaths of bats, it becomes clearer and clearer that humans are to blame for the sudden changes in the bats’ environments. Kolbert returns to the Aeolus Cave the next year, with a team of biologists from the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. The team counts only 112 bats—less than 10% of the norm. Geomyces destructans has thrived in New England because bats are highly sociable creatures; they spread the white fungus to other bats quickly. Meanwhile, the brown bat, and a few other bat species, has become endangered. the extinction of a certain species of bat in New England may spread to other bat species—another illustration of how the extinction of one animal can cause a domino effect, resulting in a mass-extinction.