A winged creature not caught in\u00a0North Carolina\u00a0for more than a decade has been rediscovered, and the circumstances resemble\u00a0Halloween\u00a0decorations.<\/p>\n
Deep in the 531,148-acre Nantahala National Forest stands a towering and twisted hemlock that appears to be dead, but is very much alive on the inside with a colony of bats.<\/p>\n
Specifically,\u00a0Indiana\u00a0bats, a rare species known to communicate in the night with eerie \u201cclicking\u201d\u00a0sounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty-four 24 bats were counted. This is the first\u00a0Indiana\u00a0bat maternity roost found in the state in 14 years, so it was a huge conservation win,\u201d the\u00a0N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission\u00a0told The\u00a0Charlotte Observer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndiana bats commonly roost under loose bark on dead trees, so this tree fit what we would expect. The tracking team searched on foot for three long days before finding the roost, which included an 11-mile hike on the second day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The species is listed as endangered and has been considered near extinction. \u201cThe current population has\u00a0declined by half\u00a0compared to when the species was listed as endangered,\u201d the\u00a0U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u00a0reports.<\/p>\n
Indiana\u00a0bats navigate and find insect prey by producing sound waves at frequencies above human hearing, experts say.<\/p>\n
The species went into decline for a number of reasons, including pesticides and a disease known as white-nose syndrome, federal officials say.<\/p>\n
A chance catch in a net strung across a gravel road revealed some\u00a0Indiana\u00a0bats were still to be found in the state. Five \u201creproductive\u201d females were caught about 20 miles west of\u00a0Robbinsville, in\u00a0Graham County, state officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo bats were radio-tagged and tracked by biologists from\u00a0Brown Environmental Consulting\u00a0and the\u00a0U.S. Forest Service\u00a0about a mile from the capture site to a dead eastern hemlock tree where the two radio-tagged bats were roosting,\u201d N.C. Bat Biologist\u00a0Katherine Etchison\u00a0said in an email.<\/p>\n
\u201cMountainous terrain blocks the radio signal, and when you couple that with the fact that bats are highly mobile and can fly several miles to their roost, it makes radio tracking an incredibly challenging task! We were thrilled that the tracking team found the roost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plans are underway to monitor the colony, officials said. The eastern hemlock the bats inhabit is 60 feet tall and likely died \u201cdue to the invasive hemlock wooly adelgid,\u201d state officials said.<\/p>\n
Robbinsville\u00a0is about a 210-mile drive west from uptown Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Tragedy befalls North Carolina\u2019s famous barn owl reality show. One owl is killed<\/a><\/p>\n 6 bears killed within 2 weeks as home break-ins rise in one NC county, state says<\/a><\/p>\n Large alligator calmly walked house to house like a stray dog, NC officials say<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a92026 The Charlotte Observer. Visit\u00a0charlotteobserver.com<\/a>. Distributed by\u00a0Tribune Content Agency, LLC<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A winged creature not caught in\u00a0North Carolina\u00a0for more than a decade has been rediscovered, and the circumstances resemble\u00a0Halloween\u00a0decorations.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[2558,3,2256,79,13109,201],"class_list":["post-731964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-carolina","tag-science","tag-state","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}