Peak Conservation

So the election’s over, the days are getting shorter, and it’s about time for a nice long nap. May I suggest an 80-foot-long concrete chamber, tucked neatly into a hillside in Tennessee? Clean, cool, and cozy, it’s the perfect winter hideaway … if you’re a bat, that is. Yes, The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee has [...]

Six Million and Counting

[kml_flashembed publishmethod="static" fversion="8.0.0" movie="http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Bats.swf" width="500" height="300" targetclass="flashmovie"] [/kml_flashembed] Last year, I wrote a story for Smithsonian about white-nose syndrome, the fungal disease that’s killing cave-dwelling bats in the eastern United States. Researchers told me about watching sick, confused bats flutter out of caves in the middle of winter; about entering caves literally carpeted with bat [...]