NYT
March 25, 2008
Bats Perish, and No One Knows Why
By TINA KELLEY
Al Hicks was standing outside an old mine in the Adirondacks, the
largest bat hibernaculum, or winter resting place, in New York State.

It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of
the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they
flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the
thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.

All would be dead by nightfall. Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with
the state’s Environmental Conservation Department, said: “Bats don’t
fly in the daytime, and bats don’t fly in the winter. Every bat you
see out here is a ‘dead bat flying,’ so to speak.”

They have plenty of company. In what is one of the worst calamities to
hit bat populations in the United States, on average 90 percent of the
hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since
last winter.