It's here and it's definitely deadly. A fungus that's killing off bats so fast, one expert says some species could be wiped out.
Scientists have tracked White Nose Syndrome for about three years in this part of the country. It's killed an estimated one million bats, according to the Washington Post. Now the mysterious fungus is in two Virginia caves, biologists confirmed just last week: the Breathing Cave in Bath County and Clover Hollow in Giles County, hundreds of miles from the other known infected caves.
"We thought we'd have more time to prepare," said Rick Reynolds, a wildlife biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. "Unfortunately, no one knows what to do about it," he told the newspaper.
Scientists aren't sure how White Nose Syndrome is speading. It's called that because of the white ring of fungus it leaves on the muzzles and wings of bats. Bats could get it from other bats, other species, even humans who might bring it in on their shoes, clothes or camping gear.
Once WNS infects a colony, 9 out of 10 bats die within a year.
"If this continues to spread, we are talking about extinctions," Thomas Kunz, an ecologist and bat expert at Boston University, told the newspaper. "I've studied bats for 44 years. This is unprecedented in my lifetime. It's not alarmist. These are just the facts."
No bats or few bats could have a devastating effect on our food supply and you'd be itching and scratching a lot more. Bats eat mosquitos and a lot of the insects. "What are these insects going to do that aren't being eaten?" Kunz said. "They can cause serious damage to crops, gardens and forests, further upsetting both the natural and human-altered ecosystems."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service closed caves in 17 states adjacent to the outbreak. They're hoping to slow the spread of WNS long enough for someone to figure out how to solve the bat crisis.
