Feds propose endangered species listing for northern long-eared bat

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has started the process to list the northern long-eared bat as endangered. The agency says an in-depth review of the species has found that the bats continue to decline and face extinction.

When the agency listed the northern long-eared bat as threatened in 2015, environmental groups sued, contending the impact of white-nose syndrome on bat populations warranted endangered status.

Last year a federal judge ordered the agency to reconsider the decision.

“So this is in response to that ruling that asked us to go back and look at our rule and evaluate it,” said USFWS spokesperson Georgia Parham.

The agency’s new assessment determined that the bat now meets the criteria for endangered species protections, said Parham.

In announcing the proposal to reclassify the bat as endangered, the USFWS said white-nose syndrome has caused 97 to 100 percent population declines in affected populations.

The fungal disease is expected to affect 100 percent of the northern long-eared bat range by 2025.

The agency said bats contribute at least $3 billion a year to the U.S. agriculture economy by helping control insect pests and by pollinating plants.

The primary range for the northern long-eared bat is in the northeastern United States, but the bat is found in 37 states, including Minnesota where it lives in caves and abandoned mines in the winter and reproduces in forested areas in the summer.

Bat populations in Minnesota have been hit hard by white-nose syndrome.

Parham said white-nose syndrome was affecting northern long-eared bat populations in 2015 when the agency listed the bat as threatened.

“But it has spread much more quickly than we had anticipated. So that was a primary element that we looked at in our species status assessment. And that's obviously been a factor in our proposals to reclassify,” she said.

But delays in listing the bat as endangered have had a significant negative impact on populations according to Ryan Shannon, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“There's been an incredible impact,” he said. “The fact that the agency was still allowing activities to occur within the northern long-eared bat’s habitat that was destroying maternity roosts and otherwise harming the bat is just egregious.”

Protection under the Endangered Species Act would enhance efforts to slow the spread of white-nose syndrome and protect critical habitat.

“Especially at sensitive life stages, which would be hibernation during the winter, and then during the summer, when the females form maternity colonies and raise their pups,” said Parham.

An endangered listing could impact future projects, especially in forested areas of northern Minnesota, where the bats reproduce.

The USFWS will take public comment on the proposed listing until May 23. The agency expects to make a final decision by the end of the year.