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2012 edition. These accounts have been selected to provide the best available overall portrait of an evolving situation. Please note that some information may be dated and that media accounts rarely provide full, or always accurate, technical information.
Bat populations rebound in NY caves first struck by deadly white-nose syndrome
Associated Press, April 19, 2012
VOORHEESVILLE, N.Y. — Researchers found substantially more bats in several caves that were the first ones struck by white-nose syndrome, giving them a glimmer of hope amid a scourge that has killed millions of bats in North America.
Figures released Thursday by the state Department of Environmental Conservation showed notable increases in the number of little brown bats in three out of five upstate New York hibernation caves where scientists first noticed white nose decimating winter bat populations six years ago. The largest cave saw an increase from 1,496 little browns last year to 2,402 this winter.
There are hopes this is an early sign that bats can adapt to a disease that has spread to 19 states and Canada. But scientists caution it’s far too early to tell if it is the start of a trend or a statistical blip.
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The survey found that statewide losses of little browns, the most common bat species in New York before white-nose, remain at about 90 percent.
New York state bat biologist Carl Herzog said that while counts were up in the three caves west of Albany for little browns, bat-counters could have missed some in previous surveys and new bats coming to hibernate in the caves are a contributing factor.
But the possibility that bat populations could adapt to the fungus has long been the hope of scientists.
“That’s what the perfect scenario would be — that the area that was first hit would be the first to recover because they would have had more time to adapt to the pathogen,” said Beth Buckles, an anatomic pathologist at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.
Buckle, who is not involved in this project, said while she’s hopeful, she needs to see more data over more years.
In an effort to track the long-term effect of white-nose, Herzog and a team of researchers caught bats outside one early-hit hibernation cave on a recent moonlit night. Bats that flew out for an insect snack hit filament lines and fell into a bag where they were snatched up to be swabbed and examined.
As bats chirped in protest, their wings were stretched flat on an ultraviolet light table about twice the size of a smartphone screen. When the purple light shined through the translucent wing, infected spots that can’t be seen with the naked eye became fluorescent orange.
The infection patterns were photographed and will be compared with those of bats that succumbed to the disease years ago and with newly infected bats in Pennsylvania. They will also be compared with bats in the Czech Republic. Scientists recently confirmed that white-nose fungus hitchhiked from Europe, possibly on the boots or clothes of a well-traveled caver.
Based on observations so far, Herzog said bats from the long-exposed cave are dealing with the disease better.
But he said despite some good news from early-hit caves, there are still more questions than answers.
“This is not a widespread phenomenon,” Herzog said. “Hopefully it will be.”
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Effort to save bats gets a hand
By Brian Nearing, timesunion.com, April 7, 2012
Vishnu Chaturvedi shows charts of a bat with White Nose Syndrome and close ups of the fungus Geomyces destructans in his office at Wadsworth Lab NYS Health Department on April 6, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. His work just won a major research grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has is looking for ways to fight White Nose Syndrome, which has killed millions of bats so far and is threatening to render some bats regionally extinct.( Lori Van Buren / Times Union) ALBANY — Vishnu Chaturvedi is searching the vast kingdom of fungi for a silver bullet against a plague that has killed millions of bats throughout the Northeast since appearing in a Schoharie County cave. At labs in the Wadsworth Center of the state Department of Health, incubators designed to mimic the bats' chilly underground world of caves and mines are slowly growing several hundred kinds of fungus.The hope is that one may be able to overcome the fungus Geomyces destructans — which is behind a deadly disorder called white-nose syndrome (WNS) that infests caves where bats gather for winter hibernation, said Chaturvedi, head of the mycology department at Wadsworth.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently gave Wadsworth an $80,000 grant to support the work, on top of a $95,000 grant in 2011. This year's grant to Wadsworth was among $1.4 million given by the federal government to study WNS, the fungus and how it affects bats. ...
"We need to find a way to break the cycle, so that bats can return to caves that are no longer infected with the (WNS) fungus," said Chaturvedi. "We are looking at other fungus as a biological control."
Over the next several months, his lab will test two types of fungus already used commercially in farms, nurseries and greenhouses to protect crops like potatoes and apples from other destructive fungi, he said. Also being grown are several hundred fungus taken last summer from a half-dozen bat caves in New York and Vermont. These also will be tested to see if they can inhibit the WNS fungus. Worldwide, there are more than 1.5 million species of fungi, plant-like organisms that actually have more in common with animals than plants. Most fungus are not understood; so far, just 100,000 species have been fully described by researchers.
"The goal is that by the end of the year, we will provide our results to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services," said Chaturvedi. If any fungus appears promising, it could be applied to an infected cave as a field trial in the spring of 2013.
He said an effective fungus could inhibit the WNS fungus in one of four ways — it could outcompete it by growing faster and crowding out the WNS fungus, it could release antibiotic compounds that could kill it, it could release substances that interfere with the WNS fungus reproduction or it could directly attack the WNS fungus and break it down for nutrition.
---Feds asked to declare three bat species endangered
By Bartley Kives, Winnipeg Free Press, March 14, 2012Two types of bats found in Manitoba may be declared endangered species as the federal government considers an emergency response to mass die-offs in Eastern Canada.
Millions of North American bats have been found dead or dying where they hibernate due to white-nose syndrome, a lethal disease caused by a fungus called geomyces destructans.
The disease typically wipes out 90 to 99 per cent of all bats in a given cave and has the potential to render all of the continent's hibernating species extinct. Migrating bat species do not appear to be affected by the fungus, which somehow wakes hibernating bats from their mid-winter torpor and leads them to starve to death.
Since its discovery in 2007, white-nose syndrome has decimated bat caves in 17 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces, including Ontario. Given the rapid spread of the disease, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, or COSEWIC, decided last month to ask federal Environment Minister Peter Kent to issue an emergency order to declare three bat species endangered.
Two of those species, the little brown bat and northern long-eared bat, are found in Manitoba. If Ottawa proceeds with the order, Manitoba could wind up with funding to help further protect hibernacula, said provincial wildlife biologist Bill Watkins, COSEWIC's Manitoba board member.
"It's pretty clear from the evidence the little brown bat is in trouble," said Watkins, referring to Manitoba's most familiar bat. Although common in the province, the species is expected to be affected by white-nose syndrome by 2015 as the fungus has already been found in a cave near Wawa, Ont., on the east side of Lake Superior.
Manitoba already protects all six of its bat species — three hibernating bats and three that fly south for the winter. Federal protection could provide funds to purchase hibernacula located on private land or install barriers around them to keep people out, Watkins said.
It would also raise awareness of the threat posed to bats and possibly encourage more Manitobans to create summer habitat for the flying creatures, said Craig Willis, a University of Winnipeg biologist and leading white-nose syndrome researcher.
Willis is less certain, however, about another aspect of the endangered-species designation — the creation of a recovery team given the task of managing the population.
"If the bats are decimated (in Manitoba), it's not exactly clear what a recovery team would do," he said.
Ottawa has three months to decide whether to proceed with the emergency order.
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Flying Blind
A Mysterious Disease Has Nearly Wiped Out Bat Populations in Parts of North America and No One Knows How to Stop It
John Soltes, Earth Island Journal, Spring 2012Jackie Kashmer bundles up against the cold and walks past broken corn stalks and pyramids of freshly cut firewood to the outer reaches of her expansive property along New Jersey’s border with Pennsylvania. There, next to a pigpen, she enters a barn-sized building, kicks off her shoes and heads to the temporary home of her adopted loved ones.
This is the New Jersey Bat Sanctuary, Kashmer’s small rehabilitation center with the unenviable task of caring for hundreds of bats suffering from white-nose syndrome (WNS), the disease that has wiped out millions of these flying mammals and pushed some bat species closer to extinction.
The back room, where the ailing bats hang in their upside-down world, is like a miniature hospital ward. The infected ones – little brown bats, one of the species that has been hit the hardest – are frail and almost skeletal. Their wings are blotchy and translucent, like crepe paper stretched too far. Occasionally, Kashmer and her assistant name some of the more memorable cases. Winston was the first WNS patient. He arrived in bad shape and within a few hours had bitten off what remained of his wings. The severely dehydrated animal lost some skin on his bones and was left with ears that looked like they were disintegrating. Winston has since recovered, but his cousins don’t always fare as well.
Kashmer, usually a smiling lady with a penchant for laughing, is serious as she holds one of the sickest bats in her gloved hands, inspecting the animal carefully. The bat’s eyes seem swollen shut and its emaciated body fits all too snugly in her palm. With uncoordinated movements the little guy curls its wings around its body, like a child pulling a blanket closer for warmth.
“If you are not monitoring constantly, you’re going to come in and they’re going to be dead,” says Kashmer, a court reporter by day and a kind of Batwoman by night.
The New Jersey Bat Sanctuary is one outpost in a global community of researchers, conservationists, and government officials who are scrambling to understand the deadly epidemic and find some way to counteract it. It’s a community that has been in crisis mode since the disease was first spotted in a cave in New York state in February 2006. Today, at least 11 species of hibernating bats – including four species and subspecies that are listed as endangered – have been impacted by or are at risk from WNS.
“It’s probably the fastest decline of wild mammals in recorded history,” says Justin Boyles, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Tennessee who has been on the forefront of WNS research. “Everything’s gone in some of the northeastern caves.”
The epidemic threatens to permanently disrupt the ecology of the Northeast, where bats play a vital role in keeping insect populations in check. Equally worrisome, biologists have few ideas about stopping the fungus. Even as scientists uncover new information about this mysterious disease, the infection continues its implacable march – and bats, typically a staple silhouette on a midsummer evening, continue to fall, sometimes right out of the sky. Read more...!
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Hope Fading for WV Bats
MetroNews, WV Outdoors, Chris Lawrence, Elkins, 2/25/2012
Typically by this time of the year DNR biologist Craig Stihler would be sequestered in his office to pour over data and photographs and have a fairly firm grip on bat numbers in West Virginia. However, the last three years have been anything but typical for Stihler and the West Virginia bat population. The years have been nothing short of a disaster. "White nose syndrome showed up here in 2009 and it's really changed the way we look at bats in caves in the winter time," said Stihler.
"Our first goal when white-nose showed up was to try and figure out the distribution in the state and seeing what the impact was on bats," said Stihler. "There was some hope as it moved further south it might not have the impact it had on bats further north."
That isn't the case at all. Stihler says they are finding in most caves a 90-percent mortality rate from the fungus and there are no signs it's slowing down. The outbreak is so devastating, Stihler has scaled back visits to the caves for fear he'll disturb those bats which are managing to survive and create added stress on them.
Research continues to find out the cause and hopefully the cure. Stihler says so far the best they can tell it's a naturally occurring fungus, but not one native to North America. Most researchers are confident this malady has been seen before in Europe, but over the years the European bats built up an immunity and aren't nearly as impacted. He surmises that may eventually happen here, but it will take a long time and the bats which only a few years ago were so common in West Virginia will be all but wiped out.
If there is any good news to report since the infection started in the New England states it may be bats in those New England caves are starting to show at least some resistance. Stihler says there has been less mortality this year than when white-nose first struck there.
The other ray of hope involves the endangered bats in West Virginia. Virginia Big Eared bat only three years ago were the chief concern of DNR biologists and how to improve their numbers. But they now seem to be faring the best amid the scourge of a rampant fungus.
Listen to a 5-minute audio interview by WV MetroNews with Craig Stihler of the WV DNR.
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US bat killer strikes in Europe
NewScientist, 8 February 2012 by Andy CoghlanWhite nose syndrome has been diagnosed in a European bat for the first time. The disease, caused by a fungus, Geomyces destructans, has wiped out millions of bats in the US since it was discovered there in 2006
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The single case, in a living bat, signifies that the disease may occur sporadically in European populations. Other European bats carry the fungus but do not develop white nose syndrome.
"There's definitely no disaster in Europe, and no mass mortality, and the long-term data suggest the situation remains stable," says Natália Martinková of the Czech Institute of Vertebrate Biology in Brno, who led the research.
Martinková studies greater mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis) in a cave in the Czech Republic. She found crescent-shaped cavities filled with fungal spores and hyphae – the defining symptom of the disease – in the skin of one bat. "The pathology of the skin infection is diagnostic of white nose syndrome," she says.
Two dead bats on the cave floor were also found to be carrying the fungus, but there was no evidence that they had been killed by the disease.
The solitary case strengthens the argument that European bats have long acclimatised to the fungus. North American bats succumb because they have yet to develop resistance. The fungus is thought to have arrived recently in the US from Europe.
Last year Emma Teeling of University College Dublin in Ireland found in a study that bats in 12 European countries are carrying the fungus without any ill effects. She agrees that the isolated case of white nose syndrome is no reason to panic.
"To say that white nose syndrome is in Europe could be a bit premature," Teeling says. If anything, she says, the single case highlights the difficulty of defining when a bat has the disease and when it is harmlessly colonised by the fungus. Read more...
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Deadly Bat Fungus Spreading in the Maritimes
By Justina Reichel, January 31, 2012
White-nose syndrome on this bat has spread to the wings and ears. The disease-causing fungus has been found at three new sites in New Brunswick. (NB Museum/Karen Vanderwolf) A scientist in New Brunswick is sounding the alarm over a deadly fungus that is severely impacting bat populations in the province and could spread across the country.
During an inspection of the bats’ winter hibernation sites in recent weeks, Donald McAlpine, research curator of zoology at the New Brunswick Museum, found that the disease-causing fungus known as white-nose syndrome (WNS) has spread to three new sites.
This is despite the fact that it is still early in the hibernation season and WNS often doesn’t become evident until later in the winter.
McAlpine says the quick spread of the highly contagious disease is worrying and doesn’t bode well.
“There’s great concern that eventually [WNS] will make its way to Western Canada. There’s a very diverse bat fauna in B.C. and other parts of Western North America, so there’s plenty of concern there.”
The disease appeared in Ontario and Quebec in 2009 but McAlpine made the first Maritime discovery in New Brunswick in March 2011. The one infected site he found housed the largest concentration of hibernating bats in New Brunswick. Of the estimated 6,000 bats in the cave, 90 percent had died. Read more...
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Cavers question scope of white nose bat deaths
Associated PressMONTPELIER, Vt. — A national organization of recreational cavers is questioning a new estimate of the number of bats killed by a mysterious ailment that is spreading across the country.
The estimate by state and federal scientists said 5.7 million to 6.7 million bats had died across the Northeast from what's known as white nose syndrome. But that estimate, released this month, is flawed and could lead to unnecessary restrictions on access to caves across the country, said Peter Youngbear, a Vermont-based official with the National Speleological Society.
"This is extremely important as this number is likely to drive significant wildlife and land management decisions," Youngbear wrote in a letter to the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Decisions about closing caves, which would impact local economies, will be made based on the estimates, he pointed out.
"It is imperative that it be as accurate and defensible as possible," Youngbear wrote.
The federal government defended the estimate. If anything, it's too low, said Ann Froschauer, the Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman on white nose issues.
"The group of biologists from the Northeast and from university and research institutions that came together have many, many years of experience in working with bats," she said.
White nose is caused by a fungus that prompts bats to wake from their winter hibernation and die when they fly into the winter landscape in search of food that isn't there. First spotted in New York six years ago, it's been found in 16 states and four Canadian provinces.
It's nearly wiped out some species. One of the hardest-hit is the little brown bat, once the most common bat in the Northeast and found across the country, in much of Canada and north into Alaska.
So far, biologists have been unable to prevent its spread.
"The spread is epic at this point. We're halfway across the country," Froschauer said. "... We have no indication it's slowing down."
The federal government has closed caves and mines that it controls and where bats hibernate, but it doesn't have the authority to close caves on private property or those owned by the states or other federal agencies.
Froschauer acknowledged that recreational cavers are frustrated. Read more...
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Nearly 7 million bats may have died from white-nose fungus, officials say
By Darryl Fears, Washington Post, January 17More than five years since the deadly white-nose fungus was first detected in a New York cave where bats hibernate, up to 6.7 million of the animals are estimated to have died in 16 states and Canada, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday.
The estimate, drawn from surveys by wildlife officials mostly in Northeastern states where the disease thrives, confirmed the worst fears of biologists who have been counting dead bats covered in the powdery fungus in mines and caves every winter and worrying whether the little brown bat, the northern long-eared bat and the tricolored bat will survive.
“We’re watching a potential extinction event on the order of what we experienced with bison and passenger pigeons for this group of mammals,” said Mylea Bayless, conservation programs manager for Bat Conservation International in Austin, Tex.
“The difference is we may be seeing the regional extinction of multiple species,” Bayless said. “Unlike some of the extinction events or population depletion events we’ve seen in the past, we’re looking at a whole group of animals here, not just one species. We don’t know what that means, but it could be catastrophic.” Read more...
---European bats could offer white nose solution
Associated Press, 8 January 2012MONTPELIER, Vt. — A scientist studying the mysterious fungal ailment killing millions of bats across Vermont, New York and other states says the experiences of European bats that have been infected with a similar fungus that they've survived could provide lessons in the best way to control white nose fungus.
Most scientists believe the fungus that causes white nose syndrome in North America was brought from Europe where it was first introduced into caves in New York state. Definitive proof that the fungus is an invasive species has not yet been shown, though a study that could make that link is nearing completion.
"We have done an experiment and are analyzing the data," said Craig Willis, a biology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, who has been studying the issue with money from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other sources. "If we find evidence of the invasive species hypothesis, then it makes very good sense on focusing our efforts on European bats in hopes that we might come up with some approach for managing the disease in North America."
While definitive proof is lacking, many scientists studying white nose are convinced the fungus that causes the white patch that gives the disease its name came from Europe, making the fungus another in a long line of invasive species.
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"It would meet the definition of an exotic invasive organism," said Scott Darling, a biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife who has led the state's work on white nose since the mysterious death of thousands of bats in the state was first noticed. "For some of us in this game the invasive species battle has been focused on reptiles, amphibians or mammals as well as plants. Now we're dealing with microbes and that's a whole other battle." Read more...
