Bats & White-nose Syndrome

The old Greeley Talc Mine sits high on a hillside above the banks of the White River.

It's the only place in the Green Mountain National Forest where bats are known to be hibernating.

The U.S. Forest Service hopes it's remote enough that the hundreds of bats inside will be protected from a mysterious disease.

"In this particular cave, we have not found the effects of white nose syndrome yet," said Rob Hoelscher, a wildlife biologist with the USFS.

White nose syndrome is a fungus that's been found in hibernating bat populations, killing an estimated 90 to 95 percent of bats in affected areas. It has spread to at least 25 sites in the Northeast, including sites in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Hoelscher said it's a significant concern...

"This bat in particular is exhibiting that very characteristic white nose syndrome," said Scott Darling, a bat biologist for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, as he pulled a dead, emaciated bat from a sealed plastic bag. It was one of several bats found last week in the old Elizabeth Mine in Strafford. Before then, the disease had not been detected east of the Green Mountains.

"The fact that it has spread so rapidly is obviously disconcerting to us," he said.

Darling added that bats are a major predator of insects, so white nose syndrome isn't just a problem for bats.

"When you do the math and make the calculations of some 500,000 bats being affected by white nose syndrome," he explained, "that adds up to literally 2 billion insects per night that won't be eaten by those bats."...

Another article: On a freefall toward extinction

Bats have been dying by the thousands recently in the Northeastern United States. No one knows why, and it may be months, perhaps years, before the cause is determined.

Meanwhile, scientists predict that this summer there will be a population explosion of insects, which bats normally eat in large quantities. Greater numbers of beetles and moths could mean severe and costly losses for farmers and timber producers. There could also be bigger swarms of mosquitoes and other biting bugs, which will mean more discomfort for all of us.The perplexing bat affliction is called white-nose syndrome. Bat biologists have called it the “gravest threat to bats ever known.” Whether its cause is eventually found to be a toxic substance in the environment, a newly emergent infectious disease, lack of food, or something else, it’s clear that this latest blow to bats — and it is only the latest in a long list of injuries — could bring about the regional disappearance of one or more species. We may even lose certain species altogether.

The plight of the bats signals an unhealthy, deteriorating environment — one that we all share. Though biologists don’t believe the white-nose syndrome is a contagion that directly threatens people, from a broader perspective we all ought to worry when the natural balance of things has been so altered that bats are dying out before our eyes.

We live in an era when the words “endangered” and “extinct” have become sadly commonplace. Nonetheless, the sudden, wholesale death of wintering colonies of bats has captured headlines nationwide, and shaken biologists used to dealing with species on the downward slope.

One of the species affected is the Indiana bat, which is on the federal endangered species list. While it is estimated to have once numbered in the millions throughout its range in eastern North America, its global population was estimated last year at approximately 500,000. The reasons for its decline are disturbance and destruction of its wintering sites (caves and abandoned mines), loss of summer habitat (forests), and, probably, the use of pesticides and other toxic substances...