GreenWatch

B. McPherson   Bat with white nose syndrome and electron micrograph of fungus on bat hair White nose disease has been detected in the Fern Cave National Refuge in Alabama. It is home to about one million endangered gray bats and is their principal wintering cave. The disease has wiped out whole populations of bats since its introduction to N. America in 2006. It has not been confirmed how the disease spread from Europe to this continent, but suspicions lie with bat researchers or cavers who inadvertently brought spores of the fungus back with them in their clothes or equipment. The fungus Geomyces destructans , attacks the muzzle and wings showing up as white fuzz on the nose of the bats. They break their winter hibernation and fly out of their caves searching for insects which, of course, are not around in the winter. The bats die of starvation. "White-nose syndrome has arrived in the very core of gray bat habitat and it's like a bomb waiting to go off. Desp...

B. McPherson This little brown bat has white nose syndrome. Note the white dusting on its muzzle Some bat populations hit hard by White Nose Syndrome have rebounded in their numbers in some caves. Researchers in New York have counted increased populations of little brown bats this spring.  In some caves and abandoned mine shafts the population had plummeted by 90% to 100% due to the fungal disease. While it is too early to cheer the spring bat counts as some of the population could have been missed during earlier counts, biologists are hopeful that this signals the rebound of the bat population. Many people do not realize that bats are an important contributor to pollination and insect control, eating thousands of insects in their nightly excursions. With the death of millions of bats in eastern Canada and south in the US as far as Alabama, insect pests were expected to escalate. White nose syndrome is a fungal disease that appeared in bat caves about six yea...