Northeast Region, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

White-Nose Syndrome:
Something is killing our bats

Photo: Marvin Moriarty/USFWS

Little brown bat at Greeley Mine, Vermont, with white-nose syndrome, March 26, 2009.

Current news

Delaware biologists are collecting information about bats overwintering in the state. They ask the public to report active winter or summer roosting sites, quantities of dead bats (five or more) in one location, or quantities of bats flying in mid-day.
News release
Online Reporting Form

The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Department of the Interior on Jan. 21 to extend Endangered Species Act protection to two bat species -- the eastern small-footed bat and the northern long-eared bat -- and to close all federal bat-inhabited caves and mines nationwide to slow the transmission of WNS. CBD also petitioned the departments of Agriculture and Defense to close caves and mines. In addition to bat-to-bat transmission of WNS, scientists believe that people carry the causative agent of WNS from cave to cave on their gear and clothing, thereby spreading the disease.
News release with links to petitions.
Q and A

The National Speleological Society announced on Jan. 11 five grants totalling $27,690 for WNS work. See NSS WNS Rapid Response Fund Grant Summary -- Fall Grants, 2009. More information about NSS and WNS.

Winifred F. Frick, D. Scott Reynolds and Thomas H. Kunz have published the results of WNS research in the online Journal of Animal Ecology. See Influence of climate and reproductive timing on demography of little brown myotis Myotic lucifugus. The project received 2008 Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species grant funds.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission is asking people to report bats flying during the winter as well as dead and dying bats as they continue to track the spread of WNS in the state. WNS has been confirmed in five Pennsylvania counties since it was first seen in December 2008. News release. Access the reporting form.

White-nose syndrome has been found in a bat in France, according to an article published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Emerging Infectious Diseases journal. White-Nose Syndrome Fungus (Geomyces destructans) in Bat, France reports that a bat found in March 2009 had the characteristic white fungus on its nose. Laboratory testing confirmed that the fungus was the same as that found on bats in nine northeast states where WNS has devastated bat populations.

New York bat populations have plummeted, some more than 90 percent, due to white-nose syndrome, according to an extensive survey of 23 caves and mines where bats hibernate. Some species are declining faster than others, and bats in some hibernacula are doing better than in other hibernacula. NY Department of Environmental Conservation has been at the front of the WNS investigation since it was discovered near Albany in 2006. News release

For news and information about the WNS investigation, see the latest issue of the White-Nose Syndrome Bulletin.

National WNS Coordinator Jeremy Coleman discusses spread of the disease, bat mortality, research and potential human transport of fungal spores. As bats return to winter caves, white-nose disease expected to spread fast. (North Country Public Radio, Dec. 9, 2009, 4:19)

U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center has released preliminary findings on bat-to-bat transmission and on the detection of Geomyces desctructans, the fungus associated with white-nose syndrome, in cave sediment. Wildlife Health Bulletin 2009-03 also gives guidance for reporting cases of WNS and submitting bat samples.

Recommendations for managing white-nose syndrome during the winter of 2009/2010 call for closing human access to caves and mines with bats newly affected with WNS and limiting human access to unaffected caves and mines, all in an area 250 miles beyond caves and mines with bats currently affected with WNS. The recommendations are intended to help slow the spread of WNS while scientists seek to understand the cause and find a way to stop the disease. WNS spreads from bat-to-bat, but scientists believe it is also spread by human activity. See report and news release.

What is white-nose syndrome?

In February 2006 some 40 miles west of Albany, N.Y., a caver photographed hibernating bats with an unusual white substance on their muzzles. He noticed several dead bats. The following winter, bats behaving erratically, bats with white noses, and a few hundred dead bats in several caves came to the attention of New York Department of Environmental Conservation biologists, who documented white-nose syndrome in January 2007. Hundreds of thousands of hibernating bats have died since. Biologists with state and federal agencies and organizations across the country are still trying to find the answer to this deadly mystery.

We have found sick, dying and dead bats in unprecedented numbers in and around caves and mines from Vermont to Virginia. In some hibernacula, 90 to 100 percent of the bats are dying.

While they are in the hibernacula, affected bats often have white fungus on their muzzles and other parts of their bodies. They may have low body fat. These bats often move to cold parts of the hibernacula, fly during the day and during cold winter weather when the insects they feed upon are not available, and exhibit other uncharacteristic behavior.

Despite the continuing search to find the source of this condition by numerous laboratories and state and federal biologists, the cause of the bat deaths remains unknown. Recent identification of a cold-loving fungus could be a step toward an answer.