Yet more about White Nose

Seems that the white nose syndrome in bats is spreading south. It's now confirmed in Massachusetts and "suspicious" cases have been found in Pennsylvania. In areas where bats have contracted whatever illness this is, there is a 95% mortality rate.

You may be thinking, "well so what, they're only bats." Yes, but they are an absolutely critical part of our ecosystem. You see, bats are incredibly voracious predators. One small colony of bats will eat literally tons of insects in one night. These are the same insects, such as beetles and moths, that if left unchecked would cause enormous crop damage. Normally, bats and other predators keep problem insects in check. However, if 95% of bats in any part of the country disappear, it will be very bad for the local ecology.

There is now a whole lot of information on the internet about white nose. Biologists are now advising cavers to stay out of any cave in the northeast. Cave conservancies as far south as West Virginia are closing caves to all visitation. Since nobody knows what is causing the bat deaths, there is a great deal of concern that if someone visits a cave in New York, then visits a cave in another state, and if this is caused by some sort of pathogen, the problem will spread to caves (and bats) in another part of the country.

Luckily there's been an enormous amount of cooperation between many different federal, state, and nonprofit groups all interested in bat conservation. This Saturday, at the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service, I'm going with some friends to check on a large bat colony in my areas. A few months ago the FWS started a voluntary database for northern cavers to report caves they'd visited in the past several months. If someone visited a cave in one of the affected states, then visited a cave in another part of the country, bat conservationists want to know about those visits so we can keep an eye on the bat colonies. It turns out that a caver from New York visited a cave with a large hibernating colony (well really, only one section of the cave is a hibernaculum). The section of the cave we're planning to visit is usually closed all winter to protect the bats. It just opened up for the summer season this week, so there probably won't be many bats there. But we're going to look for any remaining bats with white noses, an unusual number of dead bats, or signs of WNS on any fresh dead bats. Hopefully we won't find anything.

Here are some links to information about the problem:

• FWS WNS Site (lots of good stuff)
• Video of wildlife biologist discussing WNS
• Northeast Bat Die-Off Mirrors Honeybee Collapse
• Bat Conservation Internation establishes White Nose research fund
  
• National Speleological Society info about White Nose