No, that's not what they're calling Christian Bale. At least, not that I know of.
"To everyone interested in bat conservation," was the subject line of a letter I turned up in a Google search this morning. So I read it—because, really, who isn't interested in bat conservation?
Don't answer that. Anyhow, it's the story that has Bruce Wayne in tears. Apparently, a somewhat mysterious fungal pathogen is wiping out bat colonies throughout the Northeast. It's called White Nose Syndrome (WNS), because the disease leaves a white moldy-looking ring around an infected bat's nose (insert off-color joke here).
Bat lovers (they do exist) and conservationists are calling the epidemic "White Death," and they say it "has the potential to be the single most devastating impact on bats in North America that we have seen in recorded history."
Right now, it's only affecting New England, but already last year, 11,000 bats in the region are reported to have died of the disease. According to an AP/CBS News report, over multiple years the disease has literally decimated the population of some bat-caves, cutting the headcount in one from 15,000 to 1,500. That's similar to what Yellow Fever did to the human population in Philadelphia in the 1790s, in what's considered one of the worst epidemics in American history.
The White Death epidemic is prominent in New York, but as the location of the Batcave is a closely-held secret, no news as yet on what's become of the caped crusader. I hear he's got another movie due out this year, though.
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