OK, for years frogs have been dying off, fungus blamed. Next came bees, entire populations wiped out. Fungus. Now caves are full of dead bats, with fungus all over their faces. And word is that a deadly fungus from British Columbia has headed south to Oregon. What the fuck, fungus? Is someone engineering fungus in some god damn fungus lab in North Korea?
Fungi are under-appreciated by most people, even by biologists. It has been estimated that there are more species of fungi than plants or animals... but few people want to study them.
When was the last time you heard about a species of fungus being driven extinct? Never, that's when. But as soon as anything remotely cute is in danger, that becomes news.
Well, I've got some news for you: Nature is a heartless bitch. Species wipe each other out all the time. It happens. Get over it. Hell, we're in the midst of a period called the Holocene Extinction, which began roughly 12,000 years ago. That's when Man started to really kick ass and take names, environmentally speaking. In 20 years, approximately 15% of the species currently alive today will be extinct. In 100 years, half of them will be gone. That puts us on par with the biggest of extinctions and we have the potential to do far more damage than that.
So yeah. Who gives a shit about a couple of frogs and bats? That's regular nature shit. Oh wait. Except for the bit about the fungi being spread by hikers and spelunkers. Oops. Yeah, that's our fault, too. Ironically, it's the "nature lovers" who are killing these particular species. Ain't live wonderful?