Clean to the Finish

I had to postpone the Walker Mountain Grotto (WMG) bat count in Hancock Cave by two weeks due to a 2014 snowstorm. Fortunately that allowed Pete Hertl to join Matthew Weiss and me.  I’m glad I had them along because the shift in dates left us with just Hunter from WMG and Janet and Dan from Flittermaus Grotto. A bat count is better with six in the group.

Hunter lived up to his name and found it easy to spot the bats in the cave. We circled through the rooms that we explore on each bat count and waited for the folks with cameras. We even forced Pete, Matthew and Hunter to climb through the Comic Book Hole.

The bat count matched closely the numbers from our recent November surveys, but we only found live pips this time (no other species). I was very happy to find no dead bats in the cave, and the bats all appeared healthy until the end. Unfortunately the last bat we found hanging near the Toilet Bowls had definite signs of white nose syndrome. Hopefully it’ll survive until hibernation season is over.