Batty Batty Batty Bat

So . . . apparently white nostril fungus is causing problems for bats.  The problem specifically is that a type of mold is killing whole populations of certain types of bats.  And even though there is zero indication that human activity caused this, there is a small but growing movement to do something to help these bats.  Some articles (like this one in Scientific American) are framing the bat deaths as something that will be a problem for people if we don't do something about it.  We'll do the batty bat after the jump.

Now, this isn't a case of humanity making a choice between the betterment of humans and the life of a few bats (as I have written about in the past).  This is something that appears to have arisen spontaneously, and by spontaneously I mean that there is likely a cause but it would be very difficult to identify with certainty.  Bats are dying, and we feel bad for them (other than the ones that turn into vampires), and naturally we want to do something about this.

I don't want to do something about this, for two main reasons.  First, let's concentrate on things to help humans, not bats.  There is discussion of creating a vaccine and innoculating the bats against this deadly fungus (called geomyces destructans; I love when organisms have descriptive names).  Um, maybe I missed something, but aren't there lots of diseases that affect humans that maybe we should be working curing first?  I'll tell you what - once we have a vaccine agains HIV and the common cold, we can work on the bat vaccine.  Priorities, people.

The other aspect that gets under my skin about this is that some people believe we have a duty to protect other species.  Not to get all Darwinian on you, but we are in competition with other species.  No other species is going to take care of us.  We are not the custodians of the earth.  Like a good guest (and have no illusions, we are guests, and eventually nature will show us the door) we should pick up after ourselves and leave our room as we found it.  But you wouldn't ask a houseguest to sweep the floor and wash the dishes, and cleaning the rest of the metaphorical house is not our responsibility.

Furthermore, 'doing something' about this problem may actually make things worse.  You see, nature has a way of restoring equilibrium.  One potential outcome of the bat fungus deaths is that mosquito populations will rise, because bats eat mosquitos.  Therefore, there is an anticipated effect on humans (more mosquito bites).  What we're not realizing is that nature will likely take care of the problem in time.  Either other eaters of mosquitos (e.g. birds) will increase in population, or mosquito populations will eventually fall (if the resources available to them are insufficient to support a larger population), thereby coming to a new standard level of population.

We humans do not like nature's equilibrium, for two reasons.  First is that it takes time, and we don't want to wait.  The second reason is that when we think of equilibrium, we think of the current one, not a future one. The future equilibrium will be different, and in this case may not include certain species of bats.  It's like social conservatives; they want to keep things in society the way they are, because they way things are is deemed good; this assumes that different is bad.  It may be bad for some, it may be good for others.

In the book I Am Legend (spoiler alert, even though it came out in 1954) the protagonist eventually realizes that his viewpoint (that he must rid the world of the vampires that humans have turned into) is flawed, and that in fact he himself is the scourge that the world must be rid of.  There is a new equilibrium (the world of vampires) and he is not a part of it.  Trying to fight against nature is a losing battle.

So, to paraphrase a previous post, let the bats die off already.