Reply #12: ...and white nose syndrome (fungal infection) is the major threat to bats - not wind turbines [View All]

http://scienceline.org/2011/10/white-nose-syndrome-is-threatening-north-american-bats/

A 2.5-foot Malayan flying fox named Camilla clung to Rob Mies’ wrist, stretching for a chunk of melon. Mies remained calm, undeterred from communicating his dire message. Bat species are in decline all over the world, but the greatest crisis is occurring here in North America, he said at a recent talk at the American Museum of Natural History.

“White-nose syndrome is causing such catastrophic mortality that it may be the worst wildlife catastrophe in the last hundred years,” said Mies, who is director of the Organization for Bat Conservation. A deadly fungus that has been in the United States for only five years, white-nose syndrome has already killed more than a million bats. One of the most affected species is the little brown bat, a mouse-sized bat that often roosts in suburban attics. Because of white-nose syndrome, Mies said, the “little brown bat could go from one of the most common mammalian species in North America, to one of the least common, if not extinct.”

The aptly named fungus, Geomyces destructans, prefers cold environments like the caves where bats hibernate. Infected bats have white, mold-like growths coating their noses and wings. The fungus causes hibernating bats to wake up four to seven times more often than normal, and the extra movement burns their stores of body fat. With no food available until spring, infected bats starve to death.

G. destructans was first recorded five years ago, in upstate New York’s Schoharie County, although Mies estimates that it arrived in the United States a few years earlier. “ is most likely from Europe, either transferred here on someone’s boots or gear, or possibly even by a bat stowed away in a crate,” he explained.

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