EVENING DESCENDS upon the meadow. In the distance the soft who-whoo-whooing of an owl welcomes the nightfall, and somewhere in the field grasses, a small vole shudders in fear. All around, birds are flying this way and that, selecting a safe, dry evening roost.

All is well, but there’s a notable absence: bats. Bats were always part of nightfall years ago, swooping and diving, as agile as any hungry fish after a drifting fly. Sometimes bats would come into places you didn’t want them: I remember one night, when I was about 8 years old, a bat was found its way into our attic. My brother and sister went up, armed with pillowcases, and a game to snag and release the bat ensued. No doubt the poor thing was scared out of its skin, but in time, freedom.

Bats are in a nosedive decline in North America and are disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide. Why do we even care? Well, for openers, life is good. Each time we lose another species, there’s a hole in the ecosystem. But really, what do bats do that really matters? A computer search gives fascinating bat facts such as: there are 1100 species of bats. These critters are the only flying mammal. Bats are pollinators and seed dispersers. From the saliva of vampire bats comes an anticoagulant that’s used to treat stroke victims.

The people of Salisbury got together recently to discuss improving bat habitat with the hope that the white nose disease can be eradicated. Bats are wonderful bug zappers. Bats are nocturnal, and a single bat eats many thousands of insects each night. Bats are valued by farmers around the world for their pest control ability. Chiroptera are diverse: one species has a 6 foot wingspan. Another weighs less than a dime. Bat babies are called pups, and a female bat gives birth to only one a year, one further step down to the road to extinction.

There are 9 species of bats in Vermont. The most common are the Little Brown Bat and the Big Brown Bat. Bats are furry. They have poor vision (“blind as a bat”). But they don’t bump into things because they have a form of sonar, or echolocation. Bats hang upside down at rest.

Bats are in literature and in myth. Stellaluna, a delightful children’s story by Janell Cannon, is in many elementary school classrooms. Most famous, of course, is Dracula, where vampires transform into bats. “Batman” gives bats a good name.

So what’s going on? Some bats are solitary, and some are social and live by the millions in caves during hibernation. Many are starving to death, as caves that are now too warm speed up the mammals’ metabolism and burn up their winter reserves too soon. In Vermont and in a few other states, a fungal plague known as White Nose Syndrome is devastating the population. At least four species of bats are threatened with extinction in the very near future.

Surely habitat disturbance is an issue, with road construction, logging, fire lines and general degradation of the bats’ environment a possible cause. Toxic chemicals and air quality may be part of the problem.

Some controversy exists over whether the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, entrusted with the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, has been aggressive enough in addressing this looming issue. Die-offs from this fungus have been killing large numbers of bats since 2007, with between 50-75% of certain bat populations already dead from White Nose Syndrome. Some research grants are now in place, charged with seeking answers to identify the cause, and subsequent resolution of the problem.

Please hurry. Life is good. I miss bats.