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North American Bat Death Toll Exceeds 6 Million From White-nose Syndrome

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  • #31
    Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

    #31:
    "Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey?s Wildlife Health Center this fall established that the sugary smudges on affected bats are a previously undescribed type of fungus that thrives in the refrigerator-like cold of winter caves. David Blehert, head of microbiology at the Madison, Wis., center, is leading experiments to definitively establish whether the fungus causes white-nose syndrome.

    Still, there is enough circumstantial evidence to lead biologists to focus on ways to stop the fungus.

    Since the fungus likes it cold and moist, they could try to lower humidity levels in at least some crucial caves, though that could create other problems. Researchers are also looking at the possibility of a fungicide, or even a fungus-killing bacteria that could spread from bat to bat. Ward Stone, New York?s wildlife pathologist, said he has been able to culture a bacteria that lives on big brown bats and kills the white-nose fungus in a lab.

    Still, tests need to be performed to see if any of the options are realistic. And as Blehert notes, time is ?our biggest enemy.?



    Some resolving tryings starts to pop out.

    Hopefully, the "thrives in the refrigerator like cold" quality, don't unveil an lab refrigerator history of the fungus

    Now, apart wild speculations, disseminating new bacterial agents could atack the fungus, but as all knows, such lab bacteria can than mutate in some new strain on the field, and generate new problems.

    Additionaly, if the fungus is an secondary consequence of an ruined immune system (and some sci. texts here published seems to point that it can't infect other organism), it would not work.

    Lowering humidity would deminish the fungus proliferation, no matter the source of the illness, so it seems an good option if it is possible to achieve.

    Strange that the NY region where it first appeared have not more answers now.

    We hope that this story would not finish as the one with the many kinds of life forms on Earth in our time period - exterminated, or near it, at the same time when tons of scientific studies explained it why maybe and where it happens, but with no real "push button" power to change anything about ...

    Comment


    • #32
      Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

      From a blog. Pics and YouTube included in the link.
      ----------------------------------------------------------------

      Hibernating Cave Bats Receive Heaters
      I hope you are reading this blog post in a cozy, climate-controlled environment. A few lucky bats in the wild may soon experience similar comfort when their drafty caves are outfitted with heaters.

      This is no mere cave home remodeling project, but rather an attempt by scientists to curb the spread of white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that's killed at least a half million bats since the deadly illness was first discovered in upstate New York during the winter of 2006.

      The mysterious disease causes a white fungus to grow on the faces and wing membranes of hibernating bats. The fungus prevents bats from staying in hibernation mode. If you woke up and found fungus growing on your body, you'd be pretty startled too. The agitated bats, when roused, then expend more energy and may become dehydrated. The depletion of body fat reserves can also cause emaciation, leading to death.

      According to researchers, affected bat populations commonly suffer 75 to 100 percent mortality.
      “We have no idea why it’s spreading so rapidly,” says Justin Boyles, a graduate student in biology at Indiana State University and co-author of a paper on the disease that's published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment e-View.

      Boyles and colleague Craig Willis of the University of Winnipeg suspect that by adding heat sources to caves where bats are known to hibernate, they might help to eliminate bat body energy lost as the flying mammals attempt to keep warm.

      On paper, at least, the idea works. The researchers think they have a chance at getting bat mortality closer to 8 percent. And the plan isn't as far fetched as you might think, since bats often fly to the warmest parts of their cave when aroused out of hibernation.

      “They already do this in the wild,” Boyles said. “What we’re suggesting is accentuating that behavior.”

      Willis added, “By insulating the bat boxes and carefully selecting where we will place them, we think we can solve this issue."

      The heaters, consisting of protected coils placed in wooden boxes, won't get rid of white-nose syndrome, but they could buy worried scientists some time to find a cause for the disease, along with prevention and treatment for it, if possible.

      “I can’t even guess what the cure or the solution to this is going to be,” says Boyles. “This isn’t a cure. We’re going for a stopgap.”

      The salvage of human life ought to be placed above barter and exchange ~ Louis Harris, 1918

      Comment


      • #33
        Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

        Thanks mixin (#34).

        The video was interesting.

        There were some interesting sentences from this video.

        It was observed that there were some aparently "in health" bats (without skin signs of the fungus).

        These bats also went out of the caves (actualy out and near the filmed house perimeter) in non-evening/night time, but in the middle of the day, even if the day temperature isn't risen, but it is cold and snow around.

        They start searching for food and water, but there is no food in the air, and they try to drink snow.

        Apart the syndrome question, it seems very odd that the bats went out of their cave/roof so much earlier, when it is not their normal environmental condition. This was commented as the result of their illness which disoriented them.

        Another spec.

        What if such behaviour (cited above) and the wrong interpretation of the bats inner biological sensors is a result of wrong and changed mixed inputs which they sensed from an globaly changed (so also localy) warmer cave environment?

        As it is now for the plants, the fish, and also for the birds, an more warmer or even only more intermitently changed weather/water/air environment, changed also their behaviour and start new migrations, which are proved by new research, so the same can now aflicted the bat population, and be the primary reason for the insurgence of their immune lowering with an secondary appearance of an fungal illness.

        The same caves can now be more subjected to altered air humidity and streams, which can than stimulate the insurgence of fungal particles on those cave surface layers, and on the bats appended on it.

        Comment


        • #34
          Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

          Source: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/localnews/ci_11979770

          Bat population shows huge declines
          By Devon Lash
          STAFF WRITER
          Posted: 03/23/2009 08:29:18 PM EDT
          Updated: 03/23/2009 08:30:56 PM EDT

          STAMFORD -- A mysterious white fungus has decimated the bat population in nine states this winter, causing concern that more insects could spread disease and pesticide use could increase this summer.

          Bats are the largest predator of night-flying insects.

          In all, 80 percent to 90 percent of the bats in Connecticut's major hibernaculas died after White-nose syndrome swept through caves and mines in New England and New York, where bats hang in hibernation. Scientists are trying to determine how the fungus is connected to the deaths.

          A cave in Connecticut that had 3,300 bats now would have 300, said Jenny Dickson, a supervising wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection.

          "We went from no mortality to a tremendous amount of mortality," Dickson said.

          Places in New York and Vermont with 100 times as many bats in one site are seeing similar decreases, she said.


          Scientists are not sure how the fungus spreads and why it took off so rapidly this winter.

          "We don't have all the answers we need yet," Dickson said. "It's critical for us to try to stop this from spreading in New England or throughout the country."

          Nine states from Vermont to Virginia have been affected, with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands, said Robyn Niver, an endangered species biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

          The affected bats, which include little brown bats, northern long-eared bats and eastern pipistrelles, are starving and dehydrated, Dickson said.

          Female bats have one to two offspring per year, and no one knows what a decimated population will mean for nature's equilibrium, Niver said.


          Without bats as predators, night-flying insects such as moths and mosquitoes could thrive, which means pesticide use could increase, Dickson said

          Dr. Michael Parry, Stamford Hospital's director of infectious diseases and microbiology, said it was too early to speculate whether the decrease in bats will cause a spike in human diseases. But the theory is sound, Parry said.


          "More mosquitoes would translate into more potential for insect-born illnesses," such as West Nile Virus and equine encephalitis, he said.

          In 2008, the state reported that mosquitoes tested positive for the West Nile virus in 26 cities and towns, nearly twice the number from a year earlier.

          Seven people contracted West Nile Virus in 2008, according to a report released in October. There were four cases of West Nile Virus in 2007.

          The extent of the damage to the bat population in Connecticut remains to be seen, particularly in Fairfield County, where most of the bats migrate to neighboring states in the winter to hibernate, Dickson said.

          Many hibernate in upstate New York, where White-nose syndrome first was documented in 2007, she said.

          In 2008, New York's Department of Environmental Conservation documented tremendous mortality in hibernating bats. Other New England states, such as Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, began seeing signs of the white fungus.

          "Here we are a year later and the news is not getting better," Dickson said. "The mortality we're seeing is phenomenal -- piles of dead bat bodies."

          Niver said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is applying for grants to fund research to determine what White-nose syndrome is and how scientists can stop its spread.

          -- Residents should report erratic bat behavior, such as flying during the day, and the status of bat colonies on personal property by calling (860) 675-8130.

          -- Staff Writer Devon Lash can be reached at 964-2242 or devon.lash@scni.com.

          Comment


          • #35
            Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

            As they says: 1+1 is not 2 in biology.

            With all of the human science and technology it couldn't be appured what is the reason ...

            At least, now we know that we don't know.


            The dolphin/whales beaching seems fall in the same cat., or maybe we can say that there is an terrible marine mammals effort to escape out from the omnipresent fragorous infrasounds ...

            Comment


            • #36
              Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

              Source: http://www.newsleader.com/article/20...904210320/1002

              Mysterious bat-killing disease found in 2 Va. caves

              The Washington Post ? April 21, 2009

              WASHINGTON ? First, the frogs began disappearing, with as many as 122 species becoming extinct worldwide since 1980. Then honeybee colonies began to collapse. Scientists fear that bats might be next.

              For the past three years, biologists in Virginia have been nervously watching a strange die-off of bats in the Northeast as a mysterious fungus spread rapidly through hibernating bat colonies, leaving caves that once served as safe havens for the hibernating creatures carpeted with the tiny, emaciated carcasses of an estimated 1 million dead bats.

              Biologists here were hoping that the fungus would somehow be contained or would burn itself out. Instead, they were shocked last week when researchers confirmed the presence of the fungus, dubbed white nose syndrome for the ring of white fungus that collects on bats' muzzles and wings, in two caves in the state: Breathing Cave in Bath County and Clover Hollow in Giles County, hundreds of miles from the other known infected caves.

              "We thought we'd have more time to prepare," said Rick Reynolds, a wildlife biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. But it wouldn't have mattered. "Unfortunately, no one knows what to do about it."


              What is known is this: As many as 90 to 100 percent of the bats in infected colonies have died within a year of finding the fungus. And with its spread this far south, there's no reason to think it will stop. Scientists are beginning to whisper the unthinkable: complete annihilation of some species.

              Just south of the infected Virginia caves, in Kentucky, Tennessee and northern Alabama, gather some of the largest populations of hibernating bats in the world. And these bats have been tracked flying hundreds of miles from their home caves. They could potentially come into contact with and infect or be infected by any number of other species of bats and the as yet incurable disease could be unstoppable.

              "If this continues to spread, we are talking about extinctions," said Thomas Kunz, an ecologist and bat expert at Boston University. "I've studied bats for 44 years. This is unprecedented in my lifetime. It's not alarmist. These are just the facts."

              (2 of 3)

              Bats, like the disappearing honeybees and frogs, play a critical role in the delicate balance of nature. A single bat will eat 50 to 100 percent of its body weight in insects in a single night. Kunz conservatively calculates that the million bats that have died would have consumed about 694 tons of insects in one year: the equivalent weight of about 11 Abrams M1 tanks.
              Advertisement

              "You take these bats away, there are a lot of unknowns," Kunz said. "What are these insects going to do that aren't being eaten? They can cause serious damage to crops, gardens and forests, further upsetting both the natural and human-altered ecosystems."

              In one study of eight Texas counties, Kunz said, researchers found that if bats disappeared, farmers would have to spend as much as $1.2 million more on pesticides each year. That means more-expensive food, more chemicals in the food supply and the environment, and who knows what other cascading effects on the animals that depend on bats as a source of food or their guano for nutrition. "Eventually, there's a threshold that's going to be reached," Kunz said. "That's not going to recover."

              White nose syndrome does not appear to affect humans. That's a blessing and a curse, Kunz said. "There's been little attention and little sense of urgency about this," he said. "Most of us are doing this research on a shoestring."


              The fungus appears to be similar to a cold-loving fungus found in caves in Europe. Hibernating bats there, although their populations are far smaller than those in the United States, have shown signs of infection, but none have died.

              Did recreational cavers bring the fungus from Europe to the United States? Did spores travel in the wind? Has an always-present fungus been "activated" by something? "I don't think we can rule anything out," said David Blehert, a microbiologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who is researching the disease. "We just don't know."

              Because the fungus appears to have leapfrogged this year from caves in the Northeast to Virginia and West Virginia, in caves better known for their popularity among recreational cavers than for big bat populations, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently issued an advisory closing all caves in 17 states adjacent to the outbreak. No one knows how the disease is spreading _ whether bats are infecting other bats or humans are tracking the fungus into caves on their shoes, scientific survey gear or caving equipment, or some combination of the two. But officials say they want to err on the side of caution. "We're under no delusions that this is going to stop the spread of the disease," said Diana Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service. "We're just hoping to slow it down enough for science to catch up and find some answers."

              (3 of 3)

              In Virginia, site of the most recent outbreak, wildlife biologist Rick Reynolds raced to a school in Cumberland County one morning last week. He'd gotten a call that a bat was flying about in the cold in broad daylight. That was a bad sign. Healthy cave bats are nocturnal and go out only at night during warmer months.
              They spend the winter hibernating deep inside caves, crevices or old mines. They hang upside down on cave walls in massive clusters, drop their body temperatures, which usually run about 100 degrees, to match the cave's cool climate and fall into a motionless sleep called torpor.

              The bat had white spots on its nose and wings. Reynolds' heart sank. He brought the bat back to his office in Verona, bagged it and shoved it in the office freezer. He'll ship it to researchers to test for white nose syndrome. If the bat tests positive, it will mean the disease is on the march south.


              Later, an hour away, in Breathing Cave in the Allegheny Mountains near the West Virginia line, Reynolds met with Rick Lambert of the Virginia Speleological Survey, who has been volunteering to check some of Virginia's 4,500 caves for the fungus.
              They crawled on their bellies through the cave's narrow passage to reach the infected colony of little brown bats. The fungus is little more than a skin irritant, they explain, much like athlete's foot. Scientists aren't sure how it's killing the bats.

              The best hypothesis is that the fungus is somehow disturbing the bats, causing them to wake more often than usual. They might be waking up so often that they use up their fat stores and starve to death. That's why infected bats are seen in the daylight, emaciated and searching for food. As the two men whispered, some of the fungus-covered bats stirred. Reynolds shook his head. "Nobody expected anything like this."

              The two made their counts and took their leave.

              "I'd like to give some advice to the southern states," Reynolds said. To him, the spread of the deadly fungus is only a matter of time. "I just don't know what that would be."

              Comment


              • #37
                Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                Source: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/200...p_decline.html

                Disease leads to steep decline in New Jersey bat population
                by Brian Murray/The Star-Ledger
                Sunday May 10, 2009, 7:23 AM

                Between the densely forested banks of the Musconetcong River, a lone brown bat fluttered and tilted through a light drizzle to scoop up the newly hatched mayflies hovering over the dark water as it flowed through Stephen's State Park.

                It is a scene quickly disappearing from New Jersey -- and the rest of the Northeast.

                Extinction is a possibility for North American bats, biologists said last week as they continued to battle the enigmatic "white-nose syndrome" that has killed more than 1 million of the winged mammals since 2007 in nine states from Vermont to Virginia.


                Bats help nature maintain an ecological balance and assist agriculture by feeding on insects. They also devour the pests that tend to bug people cooking or camping out in the summer months. Biologists contend a bat population of 100,000 eats upward of 21 tons of insects from spring to fall.

                Last month, scientists entered the Hibernia mine in Rockaway Township, one of the region's largest bat "hibernaculum" or hibernating locations, to check on the bats before they normally fly out to summer roosting areas.

                "We counted only 750 bats. ... We normally find between 26,000 and 29,000 bats in our counts there at the same time each year," said Mick Valent, a zoologist with the state Division of Fish and Wildlife.

                It is unclear whether the missing bats, 95 percent of the population, are dead. But that has been the trend in other states since New York biologist Alan Hicks discovered the syndrome in 2006.


                "White-nose syndrome" was discovered in New Jersey in January when Valent found hundreds of dead bats in the Hibernia mine. Other bats displayed classic traits of the syndrome -- prematurely leaving hibernation and frantically taking to the skies in search of insects that had not yet hatched. With their fat reserves exhausted and food unavailable, the bats froze and died.

                Valent said there is a chance that some of the Hibernia mine bats survived and left the mine days before he got there.

                "Some states had found bats in the areas of their summer roosts two to three weeks earlier than normal," Valent said. "I do know we had a high mortality. But we'll have a better sense of mortality in the fall when we see how many survived the summer and return to the hibernaculum."


                Yet white-nose syndrome -- so-named because of a strange white fungus that appears on the noses and wings of affected bats --stresses bats even after they emerge from hibernation. Scientists are finding the wing membranes damaged on many bats and they fear the females may not be able to reproduce.

                "We've found scar tissue and actual decomposition on the wings. If they can't navigate properly in flight, they can't feed and they can't reproduce,"
                said Professor Thomas Kuhns, director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University.

                The nine species of bats found in New Jersey, for example, mate in the fall before entering the hibernaculum, but suspend fertilization throughout hibernation and until they re-emerge in the spring. If the female bat has enough fat reserves, it will ovulate, become pregnant and give birth to one pup in summer.

                "We predict some of them will not have enough fat to ovulate and ones with damaged wings will not get enough food to produce milk for the pups," said
                Kuhns, who will lead a research team this summer to observe female bat roosting sites known as "maternity colonies" in old barns and trees.

                Other biologists from several states, private organizations and government agencies may be close to determining a cause, how it spreads, and how to stop a potential wildfire-run across the nation. The fear is that white-nose syndrome will move to North America's largest bat colonies in the South and Southwest.

                "We have a strong circumstantial case for the fungus," said microbiologist David Blehert at the National Health Center of the United States Geological Survey in Wisconsin, noting that until now, scientists were unsure whether the fungus was a symptom, side effect or the actual culprit.

                "We have a paper coming out in the next two weeks, which ... describes the fungus as a new species and names it. The best data we have to date is, that it is associated with and causes severe skin infections with the bats we studied," he added.

                Yet the bat deaths may still be part of a more complex relationship between the fungus and other factors, said Kuhns of Boston University, noting studies have found hibernating bats lack necessary unsaturated fats -- an important ingredient for survival and reproduction.


                "It seems likely if the animals are not coming out in good condition from hibernation, the chances of raising young is not going to be successful. I think were are facing a double whammy," said Hicks, the New York biologist.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                  How many ramaining years was propheted after the bees extintion ... 5 ?

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                    Source: http://www.theleafchronicle.com/arti...ungus+outbreak

                    Dunbar Cave to remain open amid statewide cave closure

                    By ANN WALLACE ? The Leaf-Chronicle ? July 7, 2009


                    Tennessee wildlife officials are concerned about an endangered gray bat species in Middle Tennessee dying out.

                    Officials are so worried they have closed access to all caves on public lands for a year.

                    The massive closure effort is an attempt to deter the continued spread of a fungus that has killed almost a half-million bats from New York to Virginia in the last three years.

                    'We're at a critical moment in history," said Angela English, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency wildlife diversity coordinator for Region 2, which covers Middle Tennessee.


                    "We're talking about the potential extinction of an entire species," said English.

                    Monday's TWRA statement indicated the closures are a response to a request from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Nature Conservancy has also agreed to close all caves on its property.

                    The temporary closures are effective immediately and include caves, sinkholes, tunnels and abandoned mines.

                    Dunbar Cave in Clarksville, however will remain open. A state official said Tuesday morning the cave is exempt from the closure because of its strong cave access controls and the strength of its cave tourism program.

                    As previously reported in The Leaf-Chronicle, the deadly fungus is called White-Nose Syndrome, or WNS, because white appears on the faces, ears, wings and feet of hibernating bats.

                    Once a colony is affected, the fungus spreads rapidly and has killed at least 95 percent of bats at one hibernation site in just two years.

                    ????
                    On the Net:
                    Home page for the State of Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Buy your hunting and fishing license online here.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                      #43:
                      "Dunbar Cave in Clarksville, however will remain open. A state official said Tuesday morning the cave is exempt from the closure because of its strong cave access controls and the strength of its cave tourism program."



                      Every time an closure containment wide effort is conducted (animals or humans),
                      some factor must divert or pose at risk the whole effort, by particular reasons.

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                        Source: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories...storyID=879223

                        Bats suffering 90% death rate
                        Illness creates a 'sense of urgency'

                        By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer
                        Last updated: 1:35 p.m., Thursday, December 17, 2009

                        ALBANY -- Since appearing more than two years ago in Albany County caves, a mysterious bat malady has reduced the bat populations in caves across three states by more than 90 percent, according to counts released Wednesday by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

                        The figures show the virulence linked to a fungal condition that wildlife researchers call "white nose syndrome," named for the white, fuzzy fungus found on the faces of afflicted bats. So far, there is no way to stop the spread of the illness, which leaves bats with too little body fat to survive winter hibernation.

                        In 23 caves surveyed, primarily in Albany and Schoharie counties, as well as four caves in Vermont and Massachusetts, about 4,800 bats were found last winter. That is down from surveys showing more than 55,000 bats for those same caves before the disease outbreak.

                        The figures include little brown bats, big brown bats and Indiana bats -- the last an endangered species.

                        "These numbers are about as bad as anyone could imagine," said Al Hicks, a DEC wildlife biologist. "It injects a sense of urgency to the matter. We don't have a lot of years to figure this out. If things continue at this rate, we will be in trouble."

                        Hicks and other state researchers visited the caves, taking pictures of tightly massed hibernating bats and counting each individual. He said the counts were based on at least 1,000 photographs.

                        Bats return to their caves to hibernate in the fall and, once gathered, are at risk of being exposed to the fungus again this winter. "We are gearing up now to get back into the caves and see what bats are in there," said Hicks.

                        Since being detected in Albany County caves in February 2007, white nose syndrome has spread to Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of bats. It is not clear whether the fungus is a cause of death or appears only after the bats' health is compromised by some other ailment.

                        With too little fat to survive the winter and roused from hibernation by starvation, bats sometimes leave caves during winter in a fruitless search for insects to eat.

                        New York's bat survey, which is the first multi-state survey to be released, is "not unexpected, but very disappointing and depressing," said Jeremy Coleman, national white nose syndrome coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

                        He said researchers are looking at possible fungal treatments to help cleanse caves where bats hibernate, and are also examining genetic differences between European bats, which seem less susceptible to the malady, and American bats.

                        "Right now, this fungus looks like an invasive (species) that was introduced," said Coleman. "It was not found previously anywhere in North America, and was somehow introduced here from another location. It is something that our bats never had to deal with before."

                        Caves in New York and other infected states have been closed to recreational cavers in an attempt to reduce the spread of the fungus. Federal officials are also advising that caves in states where the malady has not yet surfaced, like Ohio and Kentucky, also be closed to protect bats.

                        Brian Nearing can be reached at 454-5094 or at bnearing@timesunion.com.

                        Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories...#ixzz0Zyf9xeVA

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                          Originally posted by tropical View Post
                          Maybe the insects they feed on carried into harming chems/gmo which disrupted the bats immune system and make it colapsing after the starving wintering period in the caves.
                          This was my first thought as I read this thread. I would much prefer a mosquito die-off. its December and I'm still being pestered by them

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                            Source: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/ho...html?viewAll=y

                            Posted on Tue, Jan. 26, 2010


                            Solving the mystery of the dying bats (Pennsylvania)

                            By Sandy Bauers
                            Inquirer Staff Writer

                            Deep in a cave in Mifflin County, Pa., surrounded by icicles and tilted slabs of rock, DeeAnn Reeder shone her headlamp on a tiny bat.

                            It was dead.

                            Cradling it in gloved hands, she stretched out its wings, fanned out its minuscule toes, and examined its snout.

                            "I've seen worse," Reeder whispered, "but, boy . . . he's just covered in fungus."

                            The Bucknell biology professor studied the bat. She knew it was white-nose syndrome, first discovered three years ago in a cave near Albany, N.Y. Bats that should have been hibernating inside were dead on the ground outside.

                            Since then, a million bats have died in the Northeast. Some caves have had 99 percent mortality.


                            In a growing what-done-it mystery, white-nose spread last year to Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

                            The latest models predict the little brown bat, the most numerous in the nation, could be extinct in 7 to 30 years.

                            "That's incredibly fast," said Greg Turner, the Pennsylvania Game Commission's endangered-mammal specialist. "Unprecedented is the word."


                            "Humans have done a pretty good job of killing a lot of animals, like the buffalo," he said, "but nothing like this has ever been recorded. It's pretty bleak. That's the only way to say it."

                            The bat decline echoes that of the world's frogs. And colony collapse disorder among honeybees.

                            Some suggest links to pesticides or cascading effects of an altered environment.

                            White-nose isn't just about bats. It's also about bugs.

                            A lactating female can eat her body weight in insects in a single night. Scientists estimate the million bats lost so far would have eaten 694 tons of insects just last year.

                            Their diet includes crop pests and mosquitoes, which can spread West Nile disease and equine encephalitis.

                            Many of the bats so widespread in the summer here - living in attics, barns, and steeples - winter in caves such as the one in Mifflin County, said Scott Bearer, a bat expert with the Nature Conservancy, which owns the cave.

                            "Bats have a real value in the environment. This is an ecological disaster," said Jeremy Coleman, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's national white-nose syndrome coordinator. "If we lose them, I suspect that people will learn to appreciate them too late."

                            Last Thursday, the national nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity filed emergency petitions asking the U.S. government to close all federal caves because humans entering them without disinfecting their gear possibly could spread the fungus. The center also asked that two of the less-common species affected be listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

                            "I think Pennsylvania bats are done," Reeder said.

                            White-nose affects six of the state's eight species. "Big browns will probably be OK. Our tree bats will probably be OK," she said. "Everybody else is going to go."



                            A mysterious killer

                            Researchers still know little about white-nose.

                            It wasn't until April 2008 that David Blehert, a U.S. Geological Survey microbiologist, isolated the fungus as a hitherto unknown member of the Geomyces genus. He named it destructans - for what it was doing to the bats.

                            They still don't know if the fungus itself is the killer. It could be a contributing factor or a symptom.

                            But Blehert said it caused severe skin lesions in bats - an obvious liability.


                            Bats, like other hibernating mammals, often rouse during the winter. One theory is that they're rebooting their immune systems.

                            But white-nose bats are inexplicably rousing too often and for too long, depleting their fat reserves. Starving, they leave the cave to find food. But the insects they need aren't there in winter.

                            In Pennsylvania, more than 13 sites in six counties are infected with white-nose.

                            In New Jersey, white-nose was found last year in the state's three most populous sites - all to the north - and two other sites.

                            Mick Valent, principal zoologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection, suspects the number is higher.

                            Last year, large-scale bat deaths didn't occur until February. So officials in both states are bracing for more.



                            Counting bats

                            Turner and Bearer didn't want to add to that casualty list. But the researchers knew their very presence in the cave might cause harm by rousing the bats from hibernation.

                            So they decided to enter just once this year. "We'll get this one snapshot," Bearer said.

                            Aiming their headlamps, Turner and Bearer would spend the next few hours crawling and slithering through a mile of passages, counting every bat they saw.

                            Back toward the cave entrance, Reeder and two graduate students processed bats they had collected.

                            Researchers are frantically gathering blood and DNA samples, both for current studies and as a potential record of the fungus' spread.

                            The Smithsonian Institution is serving as a national archive of data and corpses.


                            In the cave, Reeder's students weighed each bat and measured its forearm to determine body mass index.

                            Sarah Brownlee of Coopersburg put a female into a small brown bag and set it on a portable scale. It was 6.4 grams - less than a quarter ounce.

                            Reeder flinched. "God, they're small."

                            Later, however, another female weighed 8.2 grams. "A nice fat girl," Reeder said. "That's what we like to see."

                            The students clipped hair between each bat's shoulder blades, then glued on a data-logger, smaller than a dime.

                            Programmed to record the bat's temperature every 10 minutes, they might show whether there was a pattern to arousal cycles.

                            Brownlee has set up motion-sensitive infrared cameras in caves to record what the bats do when they rouse. Are they grooming off the fungus, consuming even more energy?

                            Back at Bucknell, Laura Grieneisen of Carlisle will place the bats in a box with one end cooler than the other. She hopes to show which temperatures the white-nose bats prefer and whether that's different from healthy bats.

                            So far, no one has found a treatment, although they are investigating potential vaccines and a spray that contains an ingredient from a drug for athlete's foot. They plan to dose bats in Bucks County's Durham Mine with antifungal vapors.

                            Last fall, Congress approved $1.9 million for white-nose research. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has dedicated funds along with states and private groups including Bat Conservation International and the National Speleological Society, a caving group.

                            It's not nearly enough, Reeder said. "We need money to do the assays. I need bodies out in the field."

                            It's a race against time. "I view this thing like a wildfire that's just blowing so hot and so fast across the country," she said. "We've got to figure out, do we do a firebreak?"

                            So far, white-nose has not spread west of the Allegheny Front - a continental divide roughly along the I-99 corridor in Western Pennsylvania.


                            If they find a treatment, they can target bat caves along this line - or wherever else makes sense at the time.

                            The problem is, the bats go where they go, some migrating hundreds of miles.

                            One ray of hope has come with the recent discovery of the fungus in a cave in France. It lends credence to the hypothesis that bats in Europe, perhaps similarly decimated long ago, developed an immunity.


                            The bat cave

                            Turner and Bearer finally emerged from the cave, mud-covered and bruised from the jagged rocks and tight spaces.

                            Last year, there had been 4,100 bats. This year, just 750. About 82 percent had died.

                            "Unfortunately, that's good," Turner said. It wasn't 99 percent, as in other caves.


                            The researchers trooped wearily back to their cars, a quarter mile along a snowy slope above a frozen stream.

                            An hour later, in a basement lab posted "Bucknell bat cave," Reeder's students transferred the bats to cages.

                            Many were motionless, still in a torpor. Others crawled about groggily.

                            "OK, ladies," Brownlee said, carrying a cage toward a huge cooler, calibrated to mimic conditions in the cave.

                            Infected with fungus, the bats will likely die soon. But perhaps not before they help the researchers uncover more of their secrets.



                            Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 215-854-5147 or sbauers@phillynews.com.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                              Source: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...46/2066/NEWS03

                              Bat disease could wipe out huge ally in Tenn. agriculture
                              By Anne Paine ? THE TENNESSEAN ? February 18, 2010


                              A mysterious fungus that has wiped out entire bat colonies in parts of the eastern U.S., has arrived in Tennessee, prompting worries about how a loss of insect-eating bat populations could affect everything from farming to the increased spread of West Nile virus.

                              Two bats that died during hibernation in Worley's Cave, also called Morril's Cave, in Sullivan County have tested positive for the highly contagious white-nose syndrome.

                              The losses that could follow as it spreads could eclipse the estimated 1 million bat deaths over three years from New York state southward, according to the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

                              That's because Tennessee has more than 9,600 caves, and, unlike in the Northeast, some here can host hibernating colonies of 100,000 bats or more each winter.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands

                                Or there is no real willing to find the root of the problem and resolve it,
                                or the ghost is out for the bats as for other past organisms species perished in the 19-20 centuries after milions/etc. years of healthy living on earth (thanks humans assistance).

                                This sentence:
                                #48:
                                "have tested positive for the highly contagious white-nose syndrome"

                                seems to confirm that the infection came from the fungus itself?


                                But from previous posts in this thread:

                                ""Here are two examples where you need all this information, but until now, no one saw any apparent benefit to doing the research," she said. "It's especially relevant with parasites because we have hundreds of examples where they are vectors of diseases, but we have no idea with what frequency parasites occur on bats, potentially carrying pathogens from bat to bat. We need to do basic research and should always remember that many great discoveries were made purely by serendipity.""

                                "Tuttle doesn?t view the bat die-off as an isolated incident. Recently, scientists have been baffled by the unexplained disappearance of millions of commercial honeybees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, and a few years ago scientists reported that a strange new fungus that kills frogs, toads and other species of amphibians was spreading around the globe."

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