Originally published on Thu September 20, 2012 5:05 pm
A man-made bat cave in Tennessee is looking for tenants. An hour northwest of Nashville, the artificial cave is built to give thousands of bats a haven from a devastating infection called white-nose syndrome.
Millions of bats in the Northeast have died from the infection since it first showed up a few years ago. The culprit is an invasive fungus that grows in caves. When bats hibernate inside, they wake up with faces covered in white fuzz and often wind up starving or freezing to death.
New tenants wanted: must be quiet during the day, must enjoy bugs.
It might not sound like your kind of real estate, but the architects of a new manmade cave near Clarksville, Tennessee are hoping it will attract bats. The bats need a haven because they are threatened by a devastating and mysterious fungus that grows like white fuzz on their faces and wings as they hibernate. The fungal infection is called white-nose syndrome.
Around the country, Occupy Wall Street encampments are folding. In Nashville, lawmakers are trying to make it illegal to camp on public property. Today, the bill jumped the hurdle in the House and passed mostly along party lines. The state Senate is set to debate the bill next week.