Month: March 2021

Today, our Coalition submitted a letter to Julie Moore, Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources. The four page letter presents our arguments that the Secretary should follow the recommendations of every independent scientist who has addressed the issue and require that BLSG apply for an incidental takings permit. You can see the letter here.

Our Coalition of wildlife conservation and environmental organizations is growing. We welcome Defenders of Wildlife which recently created a big win for bats when a federal judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether the northern long-eared bat warrants listing as an endangered species. Jane Davenport, a senior attorney with Defenders of Wildlife, led this case and is supportive of our efforts to protect state- and federally listed bats in Vermont. Thank you to Jane Davenport and to all the members of our Coalition for recognizing the importance of these efforts to reduce the risk to bats from BLSG’s activities. This Coalition originally submitted the Arrowwood Report to the Agency of Natural Resources 18 months ago and has been patient and supportive since then.

Continue reading “Comments for Secretary Moore”

On town meeting day, Vermont’s Endangered Species Committee (ESC) sent a memo to Julie Moore, the Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). The memo followed 17 months of deliberation on a single issue—a threat to endangered and threatened bats in Addison and Rutland Counties. The threat comes from pesticide spraying in the BLSG (Brandon Leicester Salisbury Goshen Pittsford Insect Control District). BLSG sprays the pesticides malathion and permethrin to kill mosquitoes, and the ESC biologists had voted unanimously that this posed a risk to endangered bats because it happened after dark on summer nights when bats were flying low over the rural towns hunting for flying insects. As bats fly through the chemical plume of pesticides, they can inhale the toxic droplets, absorb them through their thin-skinned wing membranes, or get them on their fur and later ingest them by grooming themselves or other bats. They can also catch and eat flying insects contaminated with the chemicals. These pesticides are known to cause neurological and physiological stress and injury to bats.

Secretary Moore must now decide whether to protect endangered bats from this threat or to ignore a scientific consensus that the recovery of beleaguered populations of bats is threatened by the spraying.

Continue reading “ANR has one last chance to protect endangered bats”