“With all due respect to the beaver and the maple leaf, if it were up to me, the little brown bat would be the symbol of Canada,” Neil wrote. But his beloved bat has disappeared. In his bright and devastating work, he tracks the plight of white-nose syndrome. White-nose syndrome is a European fungal disease that originated in New York state in 2006 and spread throughout North America, most likely carried by tourists. There is no known cure and no way to stop the spread of the disease, which reached Alberta in 2022. Millions of bats have died so far.
There are many practical reasons to be concerned about the extinction of bats, which play an important ecological role, especially when it comes to managing mosquito populations. But Neil resists the urge to appeal to human selfishness by sueing bats. “I worry that this is a narrow way of thinking, a shallow way of interacting with the world,” he writes. “I never learned to love bats because they ate the bugs that would sting me. Their acrobatics, their mastery of the night, the shock and delight they caused when they appeared suddenly and silently in the air. Thanks to them, I have come to love them.”
It was that awe that led Neil to return to the wasteland last summer, hoping to find survivors.
Like all great writing about the natural world, Neil’s stories will change our understanding of the species that share our planet and make us reconsider what we may have overlooked. Reading this, you can’t help but be fascinated by little brown bats. Just in time for its disappearance to break your heart.
Please be careful and look at the night sky
Michelle Saika
Editor, Indigenous-led conservation organization
