Subject: [Tweeters] For birders to pay attention to any bats they might
Date: Apr 2 14:21:35 2016
From: Kelly McAllister - mcallisters4 at comcast.net


I got this message from Greg Falxa at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Many of you have probably heard of the rather unexpected discovery of white nose syndrome in a Little Brown Bat east of North Bend. This is the first case in the west, the prior western-most record of the disease begin in Oklahoma.



Thanks to all for your consideration of this appeal? and your sharp observational abilities.



Kelly McAllister

Olympia



From: gregfalxa at gmail.com [mailto:gregfalxa at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 12:32 PM
To: Kelly McAllister <mcallisters4 at comcast.net>
Subject: Bats, of course





?Hi Kelly. You've been on my list of people to talk with about all of the white nose syndrome in Washington news. Until that happens is there a chance you could do me a favor?



One thing we (WDFW) is ready for is observation reports from the public about sick, dead, or unusual behavior in bats. ?The wdfw WNS web page has been quickly modified and it has a link to a 'sick bat' reporting form. Since some of the best trained observers out and about this weekend and the coming weeks will be birders, a message to Tweeters asking for attention to signs of unusual predation (by hawks, corvids...), keeping an eye out for bats on the ground, etc. would be great. If you could send this message or your version of the basic message, I'd be mist grateful.



If you do, please direct people to the WDFW white nose syndrome web page and mention the need to collect samples or get precise locations for follow-up by an agency person:

http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/health/wns/



So we have only one csse confirmed, but out east it's never been just isolated cases, so we are extremely concerned. The DNA testing iD'd the bat as the western US subspecies of little brown bat. ?It was on the gound on a trail approx 10 miles east of North Bend. Because of limited resources, that is currently the area we will first prioritize for monitoring, but it could be anywhere, or nowhere else. Hence the value of having people keeping an eye out everywhere possible.



Thank you, and let me know if you can't post thus today and I'll look fir someone else.



Greg