ESA protection for northern long-eared bat comes late

Recall that during a field hearing in Rapid City back in 2016 South Dakota's Republican junior US Senator Mike Rounds said, "I agree with the goals of the Endangered Species Act but I am concerned with the low success rate" so he wants to end the ESA. 

Fact is: according to the Center for Biological Diversity the ESA has been resoundingly successful up until the Trump Organization, the Republican Party, Kristi Noem and South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder (GF&P) declared war on the Earth. 

Wind Cave in occupied South Dakota is home to nine species of bats, including the northern long-eared bat, one species most impacted by White-nose syndrome or WNS—a fatal disease caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. The fungus was detected on a western small-footed bat (Myotis ciliolabrum) in South Dakota in 2018. 

Last year WNS was detected in South Dakota’s Jewel Cave and in a northern long-eared bat and in a fringed myotis at a malnamed national monument in northeastern Wyoming.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced a proposal to reclassify the northern long-eared bat as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The bat, currently listed as threatened, faces extinction due to the range-wide impacts of white-nose syndrome, a deadly disease affecting cave-dwelling bats across the continent. The growing extinction crisis highlights the importance of the ESA and efforts to conserve species before declines become irreversible. [press release, US Fish and Wildlife Service]

Over a hundred native species in South Dakota are at risk to the Republican Party including the endangered pallid sturgeon, paddlefish, black footed ferret, northern long-eared bat, the black-backed woodpecker that feeds on bark beetles and a bird that actually walks underwater - the American dipper, just to name a few. Threatened by the increased conversion of native prairie to cropland the most endangered plant in the chemical toilet that is South Dakota is the white-fringed orchid (Platanthera praeclara) found mainly in tallgrass prairies west of the Mississippi River. 

It's believed insects contaminated by industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals in water supplies are weakening immune systems and spreading WNS to bats as part of the sixth mass extinction.

There's still hope! We're working with public & private partners to ensure healthy native bat populations endure in the wild for future generations. ✨

Learn more about bat conservation & how you can help bats: https://t.co/pAU5RWCUK4 🦇

— USFWS News (@USFWSNews) March 22, 2022