WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Bat Disease Continues to Baffle Researchers

Bat Disease Continues to Baffle Researchers

Stockbridge, Vermont - April 8, 2008

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.

"We're not sure how this fungus gets spread," he said. "We're not sure if the fact that this cave is gated and others aren't gated has something to do with why we don't have white nose syndrome here, or if it has something to do with the elevational range or the position of the cave."

But a discovery last week suggests isolation may not help it.

"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."

As bats emerge from hibernation this spring, biologists are hoping to learn more about the impact of the disease. They hope protecting bat habitats and keeping people away from caves will reduce stress on the animals.

"At this point it's really a waiting game to see what it's going to mean," Hoelscher said.

But it could mean that with more bats dying, more mosquitoes and moths will survive.

And that will be a stress for the human species.

Kate Duffy - WCAX News