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Trump marks first 100 days in office in campaign mode, focused on grudges and grievances; Maine's Rep. Pingree focuses on farm resilience as USDA cuts funding; AZ protesters plan May Day rally against Trump administration; Proposed Medicaid cuts could threaten GA families' health, stability.

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Trump marks first 100 days of his second term. GOP leaders praise the administration's immigration agenda, and small businesses worry about the impacts of tariffs as 90-day pause ends.

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Migration to rural America increased for the fourth year, technological gaps handicap rural hospitals and erode patient care, and doctors are needed to keep the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians healthy and align with spiritual principles.

ND's Northern Long-Eared Bats Now on Threatened List

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Monday, May 4, 2015   

BISMARCK, N.D. – New protections are now in place for the northern long-earned bat, which officially becomes listed as a threatened species in North Dakota and across the nation as of today.

The listing comes in the wake of a deadly disease called white-nose syndrome that's killed more than 6 million bats, says Ryan Moehring, North Dakota spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"White-nose syndrome is a fungus that is really devastating northern long-eared bat and other bat species populations across the country,” he adds. “So it is a pervasive fungal disease for which we have yet to identify a cure."

White-nose syndrome was first reported in the eastern U.S. in 2006 and has since spread to 26 states. That does not yet include North Dakota, although the fungus that causes the disease has been found as far west as Minnesota.

Moehring notes that these protections are vital as bats are very important ecologically.

"They maintain a really integral insect-predator-prey balance,” he explains. “So, essentially, bats eat a lot of the insects that are nuisance species to human beings and they're very important economically, especially to farmers. They eat a lot of the insects that are problematic for crops."

Also effective today is an interim rule that provides some flexibility to landowners, land managers, government agencies and others as they conduct development activities in northern long-eared bat habitat.





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