In a race to save the dying bats from the fatal white-nose syndrome (WNS) disease, the Wildlife Service is speeding up its efforts to stop the spread of WNS throughout the nation.
Concerns run high if the nation should lose its bats. Despite this furry little winged creature’s bad reputation, bats are well-liked by farmers and forests because bats play a role in maintaining ecological balance as they eat up perhaps trillions of insects a year.
“If you lose your natural predators, you are going to have to dump more pesticides on the crops and forest,” said Paul McKenzie, endangered species coordinator with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service of Missouri, in a telephone interview. More pesticides can add up in toxics and dollars. Over 5.5 million bats have died from WNS.
On the move, WNS is relaying bat-to-bat, and every winter it is branching out a little further West and South. In more states, caves are found with sick, dead bats marked with little white dots on their bodies. The white dots on the bats’ bodies are the sign that the culprit, a white fungus, is in the cave, attacking and waking up the bat colony while they hibernate in the winter.
Endangered Gray Bat
The federally endangered gray bat was confirmed with WNS on May 19 in Tennessee. There are no signs that the gray bat is dying from WNS at the moment. What makes the gray bat different compared to the other bat species that are dying with WNS is that the gray bat lives in a cave all year long, making it the first total cave-dweller bat to get WNS, according to McKenzie.
McKenzie said, “The verdict is still out on what WNS will be on gray bats—we just don’t know.”
Knowing that WNS has wiped out entire bat colonies, McKenzie said that “if it’s similar to other species in the same genus that got WNS and the trend follows, that it could be devastating,” because gray bat colonies are few but group together numbering hundreds of thousands or a million.
Plans on the Ground
A national response plan is waiting for WNS should the fungus continue its move through the nation’s caves. Cave closures are being renewed and expanded. States that have not found WNS in their caves are closing them and developing a state-level response plan should WNS show up, according to McKenzie.
“State and federal agencies have taken some task of control and access by closing their caves,” McKenzie said.
Scientists found that the fungus, which thrives in cold caves and mines, could spread by people visiting caves as the unforeseen fungus could be transported to a different cave on a person’s shoe or gear, but bats also keep WNS spreading as they visit other caves in the fall breeding time.
Thinking of ways to stop WNS, researchers decontaminate their clothes and gear after entering caves and new protocols are being developed, asking hikers to use an antiseptic with their cave gear after entering a cave, according to McKenzie.
Gates are also built at caves entrances to keep people out and to keep bats sleeping healthy during the winter. Alyssa Bennett, wildlife technician with the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department, said bats have a better chance of surviving WNS if they are not bothered in the winter.
The disease makes the bats wake up early from hibernation and hungry for their springtime friends. If woken up once from WNS, perhaps the bats can use the little energy left to go back to sleep. But if woken up twice and more, the chances of making it out of the cave are less likely, Bennett said in a telephone interview.
Experiments in artificial caves and mines are also being worked on to find a suitable WNS antiseptic, said McKenzie.
Counting Bats
So many bats were killed by the fungus in Vermont that the state added two species to the state’s endangered species list last July—the little brown bat and the northern long-eared bat.
These two bats’ summer home is peoples’ barns and attics, returning each year in groups of females to raise their pups, and “Got Bats?” asks citizens to call the Wildlife Department if they find bats on their property, said Bennett. She then goes out to count the bats and track the numbers.
Numbers have shifted a lot since WNS, according to Bennett. “People used to have hundreds or thousands of bats living in a big barn and now they might have a hundred left out of a thousand, or ten, or they might be gone completely. We have gotten a lot of reports where they just don’t have or see any bats anymore,” said Bennett.
Despite the dramatic loss of bats in Vermont, Bennett said they are happy to say they still have some bats. “I wish I could say ... they lived. I'd be really happy to say that, but the disease is still here and our bats are still suffering from it,” Bennett said.
But summer is a good time, “a little bit of a happier time” for the bats, according to Bennett, as insects are aplenty, the bats are warm, the cold-loving fungus doesn’t like warmth, and the pups are born.
Counting bats together, Bennett said it’s exciting for everyone when you know they are in such trouble.
“If you have a little brown bat living in your barn and you know that they are now a state endangered species, I think people take a lot of pride in that they are helping those endangered species to thrive just by allowing them to stay where they are. People start calling the bats ’my' bats, and then really taking responsibility for the welfare of these species and doing what they can to help.”
