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<\/p>\n\u2018Such wonderful animals\u2019 \u2014 Laurie Wearners who are looking for ways to stop the epidemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are doing our small part in raising money and teaching kids,\u201d said Stevenson.<\/p>\n
Laurie Wearne, founder of Bats in Flight, has also stepped up to protect bats from predators of all kinds.<\/p>\n
Her presentation during last week\u2019s Bird and Bat Festival was called, \u201cRescued bats in captivity: their care and biology.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just such wonderful animals. They\u2019re so helpful in our eco-system. They do such incredible things for us in terms of pollinating and pest control. They\u2019re very valuable life forms on Planet Earth,\u201d she told the group of about 150 people attending her talk.<\/p>\n
Wearne has rescued 20 bats that include the New Mexico brown bat and silver-haired bat. They\u2019re not releasable back into the wild because of injuries sustained from cats, hawks and owls.<\/p>\n
To care for them, Wearne built 6-x-9-foot tanks at her home where she spends 2 to 8 hours a day preparing food, cleaning and feeding them.<\/p>\n
She said it\u2019s all worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can go into a tank at night. When I walk through, the bats are out flying around,\u201d she said about the wonder she feels when she\u2019s that close to them. \u201cThey\u2019re swimming through the air.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that bats land on her but it\u2019s never by accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re using me as a ricochet platform. It\u2019s all calculated,\u201d she mused. Because WNS impacts different components of the ecosystem, Stevenson said that there\u2019s no easy solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly, no one can just rush to save the bats alone. It has to be thought of in the big picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This year, Stevenson said that Fight WNS raised $15,000 for research.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe help researchers pursue answers to solve this awful thing that\u2019s been killing so many bats,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Wearne said that supporting research has made a difference in the fight against White Nose Syndrome.<\/p>\n
Bat Conservation International discovered an antidote that works against Pd. Recently, 150 rehabilitated bats have been released back to their habitat.<\/p>\n
The State of New Mexico has also stepped in to help jaa\u02bcaban\u00eds stay safe when they\u2019re sleeping.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s now mandatory for anyone entering caves or mines on state property to follow decontamination protocols.<\/p>\n
But, for bat havens off state property, that\u2019s hard to monitor.<\/p>\n
Private land owners and tribal property managers need to step up to help.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s recommended that bat caves and enclosures are decontaminated and closed off to recreational caving.<\/p>\n
More public education and research is also called for to protect jaa\u02bcaban\u00eds from a predator they never see or hear coming.<\/p>\n
Information: Batsinflight.org, Fight WNS, twinrocks.org, rgnc.org, rdwildlife. com, batcon.org, whitenosesyndrome.org<\/p>\n
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SUBMITTED<\/p>\n
The New Mexico brown bat is one species that could be threatened by a deadly fungus called Pd, if it reaches the southwest.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Such wonderful animals\u2019 \u2014 Laurie Wearners who are looking for ways to stop the epidemic. \u201cWe are doing our small<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16343,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16340\/revisions\/16343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}