Feds OK Habitat Destruction for Endangered Bats
An Environmental Article from All-Creatures.org

From

Center for Biological Diversity
January 2016

"This rule does nothing to address the primary threat to the bats, white-nose syndrome. And it allows virtually all the bats' habitat to be logged, mined, fracked or paved over," said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center.

Forest-clearing by loggers, developers and the energy industry -- normally prohibited in endangered species habitat -- will be allowed in the habitat of threatened northern long-eared bats under a final rule for the bats issued last week by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Although the deadly disease white-nose syndrome is the primary cause of the species' decline, ongoing forest loss and conversion are also serious threats to the animals.

Especially when the bats are weakened by disease, they require intact habitat for feeding -- but the rule allows business as usual to continue, with only minimal restrictions on land clearing.

"This rule does nothing to address the primary threat to the bats, white-nose syndrome. And it allows virtually all the bats' habitat to be logged, mined, fracked or paved over," said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center.

After a Center petition, northern long-eared bats were first proposed for "endangered" status in 2014, then downgraded to "threatened" last April -- a change that allowed the Service to give industry the loopholes for which they'd lobbied so hard.

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