Tag Archives: white nose syndrome

WNS Hits Mammoth Cave NP

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MACA_long_cave_MYSE_4Jan2013_forReleaseMammoth Cave in Kentucky used to be one of the largest bat hibernaculums in the world. Indiana bats were particularly fond of the place, and the decline of the cave as a hibernaculum served as a warning to how vulnerable that species is.

On Wednesday, the National Park Service announced that white nose syndrome (WNS) had been confirmed in a northern long-eared bat in Long Cave, a cave in Mammoth Cave National Park that had been closed to visitors for more than 80 years.

“It grieves me to make this announcement,” said Mammoth Cave National Park Superintendent Sarah Craighead in a press release.

Mammoth Cave National Park is home to two federally endangered species of bats and one considered a species of special concern by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It is also home to two state endangered bat species, two state threatened bat species and one species of special concern to the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission, according to the National Park Service.

WNS was first discovered in Kentucky in April 2011. The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s white nose syndrome map shows another detection in Kentucky this season, in Bell County, making these the first reports of WNS this season.

Read the Mammoth Cave National Park press release here.
Read an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal here.
See the USFWS white nose syndrome map here.

Photo: A northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) from Long Cave in Mammoth Cave National Park showing evidence of white-nose syndrome. By Steven Thomas, used courtesy of the National Park Service

Man-Made Bat Cave Aims to Aid WNS Bats

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The bat cave created by The Nature Conservancy chapter in Tennessee can be disinfected after each hibernation season, which may offer some bats a refuge from white nose syndrome (WNS). According to the Leaf Chronicle, the cave cost $300,000, which was raised entirely from private funds.

The article also notes that the cave was built near an existing bat hibernation site.

Lots of details in the Leaf Chronicle article. Read it here.
Read a shorter article in Popular Science, here.
The Nature Conservancy press release is here.
A Nature Conservancy interview with project leader Cory Holliday, here.

What the two reported articles don’t say is that the cave is an answer to a common question about possible solutions for white nose syndrome: Why don’t you just disinfect the cave with an anti-fungal? (Any doubts that this is common? See the comments after the articles.) The short answer is that a cave is a complex ecosystem and fungi play an important role. So far there isn’t a way to kill just the WNS fungus without killing other fungi in the cave.

The artificial cave doesn’t have an ecosystem, so it can be sterilized when the bats leave in the spring. This should prevent healthy bats from be infected from fungi in the cave the following winter, perhaps lessening the virulence in that cave.

It’s pricey, time-consuming and takes some of the wildness away from the bats, but compared to having wildlife rehabilitators raise a “Noah’s ark” population (which has been discussed at times with some seriousness, and even tried with Virginia big-eared bats), it’s likely cheaper, easier and less disruptive.

…And, this just in: An Associated Press story (here in the San Francisco Chronicle) does get into some of these details. Read it here.

Photo: View of the artificial bat cave, with the human entrance below and the bat entrance above. Photo credit: © Cory Holliday, The Nature Conservancy