America’s Great Outdoors Tumblr updates

10/31/2014 10:53 AM EDT

Happy Halloween – one of the coolest symbols of this special day are bats! Bats are amazing animals that are vital to the health of our environment and economy – eating tons of insects nightly, pollinating flowers and spreading seeds that that grow new plants and even trees. Bats are in decline nearly everywhere they are found. Bats in the U.S. and Canada have declined dramatically as the disease, #whitenosesyndrome has killed over 6 million bats in just six years. To learn more about what we’re doing to combat this disease, visit www.whitenosesyndrome.org/.

Photo: Mexican free-tailed bats exiting Bracken Bat Cave in Texas. (Ann Froschauer/@USFWS)