White-nose fungus has decimated bat populations in the Northeast over the last few years. Bucknell University bat ecologist DeeAnn Reeder isn't holding out much hope for most of our native bats:
I think within several years there will be practically no bats left in Pennsylvania. New York is empty. Massachusetts is empty. There are just handfuls. One of our sites that we study heavily, the Shindle Iron Mine, normally has over 1,000 bats. Now it has six.
