Long-eared bat could go on endangered list

It's about a bat.

The northern long-eared bat.

Government officials and timber industry representatives are trying to figure out how to save the bat, which has seen its numbers fall dramatically in recent years because of disease, and keep down the economic impact of that preservation effort.

Some bat populations in the northeastern part of the country have been nearly wiped out since the syndrome was discovered in 2006, according to the fish and wildlife service. The federal agency says white-nose syndrome has been confirmed in parts of Wisconsin and the Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed enacting some level of protection for the northern long-eared bat and that effort was the focus of a roundtable discussion on Monday in Ashwaubenon.

The federal government has been petitioned by the Center for Biological Diversity, a national conservation organization, to list the bat as either an endangered or threatened species after millions died in recent years from a fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome. As part of the protection plan, the timber industry could be restricted from logging trees where the bats roost during a 30- to 45-day period in the summer.

"The dead and dying trees are the ones the bats have an affinity for," said Pete Fasbender, who works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Wisconsin and Minnesota. "Normal timber practices, cutting healthy trees — that won't be an issue."

Early federal guidelines suggested those limitations could be in place from April to October. That time frame, however, raised concerns by some in the timber industry, which needs those months for logging activities, that it could lose tens of billions of dollars annually, eventually radiating out into other sectors of the state's economy.

About 1 percent of Wisconsin's available timber is harvested annually.

"If this were to happen like the worst-case scenario, it would give us about two months out of the year where we could really log," said Scott Sawle, owner of Rockbridge Sawmill Inc., based in Richland Center. "You can't log a mill in two months out of the year."

Sawle says he hopes any protection measures enacted by the federal government include the shorter limit on some logging operations. Restrictions aimed at protecting the long-eared bat, which lives in a large swath of the eastern and northern sections of the United States, would be on top of the list of restrictions loggers already face, Sawle said.

But he and others in the timber sector said they want to work with the government to protect the bat in a way that doesn't do significant economic damage to the timber industry.

"We know the bats are needed — they do a good job — but to go after our industry, when we're not even the cause of the problem?" he said. "They've got a disease. Work on that disease."

Fasbender said the main concern for loss of the bats is roughly in June and July. It is focused on trees with cracks, crevices and loose bark, the bats' habitat.

"What we're really concerned about is this time frame when female bats have given birth to their young, and the young can't fly," Fasbender said. "They go into these trees, in cavities, crevices and under bark. ... If you felled a tree that had the non-flying young, they would be killed in the process."

The fish and wildlife service is scheduled to announce a final decision on efforts to protect the bats in April. The panel could decide not to enact any restrictions or list the species as endangered, Fasbender said. Researchers are still working on getting a handle on a cure for white-nose syndrome, he said.

"The reason for the listing, the reason for the broad population decline, is white-nose syndrome," Fasbender said. "Yet we have to look at all the threats together. White-nose, wind turbines, habitat loss. All of that needs to be contemplated as we develop an agency decision."

The proposed endangered listing affects almost 40 states, including Wisconsin, making it one of the largest proposed listings ever done, Fasbender said.

Monday's meeting at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center included representatives from the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association, Lakes State's Lumber Association and Wisconsin County Forests Association.

Henry Schienebeck, executive director of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association, said he's optimistic a reasonable balance can be found.

"Wisconsin listed the long-eared bat and three other species (as endangered) about three years ago, and we've not yet seen a negative impact to the timber industry," Schienebeck said. "We're hoping the fish and wildlife service takes their lead and is able to utilize that same process."

U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, R-Sherwood, said he will examine the possibility of moving back the deadline from April.

Ribble said he wants to see a more concrete accounting of the impact timber activities have — or don't have — on the bat's survival. He also wants a more targeted focus on the source of the decline, the cave-born disease.

"It's not just those jobs, it's the tax revenues that come from all that effort that fund our schools and public education in all these small communities," he said. "If this goes through as a fully blown endangered species listing, it could stop the northern U.S. timber industry, and it would not solve the problem with the bat."

— nphelps@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter @nathanphelpsPG or on Facebook at Nathan Phelps (Press-Gazette)