LITTLE ORLEANS - Clouds drift in front of a nearly full moon as a bat flutters to the mouth of an abandoned railroad tunnel in Western Maryland. There, caught in a web of fishing line, it drops into a biologist's trap.
A quick and gentle exam by flashlight identifies it as a big brown bat, a female. Gloved hands jot down her vital statistics and release her - one more data point in scientists' growing understanding of what is believed to be Maryland's largest winter hideaway for bats.
The 4,350-foot Indigo Tunnel southwest of Hancock hosts an estimated 1,400 bats during their winter hibernation, some of them rare and endangered species. But the bats' fondness for the place could derail plans to extend a popular bike trail through the cavernous tunnel - a route that supporters hope will help lure thousands more tourists to this hard-pressed region.
In 2005, the administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. set aside $4.6 million in state and federal funds to extend the Western Maryland Rail Trail, a 22-mile paved biking path, for 4.7 miles through Indigo Tunnel to the hamlet of Little Orleans in Allegany County.
Eventually, boosters want to extend it farther, traversing the Stickpile and Kessler tunnels to Paw Paw, W.Va.
Public officials on both sides of the Potomac River think the rail-trail extension could bring more bikers, hikers and in-line skaters, and their money. "In Hancock in the summer, you see all kinds of people in town on bikes. They stop there and eat and buy other things," said state Sen. George C. Edwards, a Republican who represents Western Maryland.
There are ways to extend the trail while bypassing the tunnel, but it wouldn't be the same, say supporters who believe the trail could become one of the nation's top cycling destinations.
"Anytime you can include a 100-year-old historic tunnel in your trail, that kinda gives you bragging rights," said Penny Pittman, a restaurant owner and president of the Hancock Chamber of Commerce.
Human recreation and bats can sometimes coexist, says Jim Kennedy, a biologist with Texas-based Bat Conservation International: "But in this case, we really don't see a clear way that the bike trail is going to have any beneficial or benign effects on the bats."
He worries that human presence in the tunnel, and alterations for bike traffic, would make it unattractive to bats.
