MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • June 12, 2022
Maine’s bats can be separated into two groups: 3 species of non-migratory “cave bats” that overwinter here, and 5 species of migratory “tree bats” that leave Maine in fall and return in the spring. White-nose syndrome, the fungal disease that is causing the dramatic declines in bats, is transmitted in caves, so it is the bats that hibernate in Maine that are seeing the 90+% decline since WNS was first detected in Maine in 2011. The declines in insect populations leave the others struggling as well. Cats, which are non-native surplus hunters (they kill even when they’re well fed), are only here because we humans introduced them. They are one of the most common causes of mortality in bats and birds. Please keep your cats indoors. ~ Maine Audubon Staff Naturalist Doug Hitchcox