Update:

Source: US Geological Survey (USGS), National Wildlife Health Center
official release [edited]
<http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/>

The condition in bats that is labeled ‘white-nose syndrome’ was first
noted among dead and hibernating bats within several caves near
Albany, New York in February 2007. During the late winter/early
spring of 2007, observation of bats with a white substance on their
noses was also accompanied by a bat die-off, with an estimated 90
percent mortality in one affected hibernaculum.

This winter [2007-2008], although substantial bat mortality has not
occurred, bat researchers have identified bats presenting with white
noses at hibernaculae in New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts. A
coordinated effort involving both state and Federal laboratories to
conduct postmortem evaluations of bats from sites harboring bats
presenting with white noses has been established.

Thus far, euthanized bats with and without white noses from affected
and unaffected sites have been examined, and laboratories are
standing by to receive additional specimens as mortalities occur. The
most noteworthy finding to date has been the poor body condition of
many of the bats examined — they had little or no subcutaneous white
fat stores.

A primary etiological agent has not been identified, and
investigations of underlying environmental factors in conjunction
with potential secondary microbial pathogens or toxicants are
underway. Molecular based pathogen screening and analyses for
metabolic problems are also being pursued. Following is a brief
summary of laboratory and histological findings to date.

Bacteriology and mycology
————————-
Extensive culturing of skin and internal organs was conducted at both
room temperature and at 37 deg C (98.6 deg F). Room temperature
incubation yielded many more isolates than warm incubation. Numerous
bacterial and fungal isolates were cultured, especially from skin
samples, with little consistency from bat to bat. The majority of the
bacterial isolates are slow-growing, non-fermenters, and both
bacterial and fungal isolates are representative of the microflora
likely present in a moist cave environment.

Virology
——–
Culture analyses of numerous internal organs using vero cells and
bat-derived kidney and pulmonary cell-lines have not yielded
cytopathic effects nor have they yielded viral isolates.

Parasitology
————
Some endoparasites (such as, intestinal trematodes, cysts in one
bat’s kidneys) and ectoparasites have been observed. The parasites do
not seem to be eliciting any immune or pathological response.

Histology
———
A subset of the bats examined exhibited a mild to moderate,
non-specific pneumonia. Microscopically, fungal hyphae were seen on
the external surfaces of the majority of bats examined, even when
fungal colonization was not grossly evident. Although in some cases,
fungi did invade into the dermis and sebaceous units of the skin, and
inflammatory response was minimal. The white fungal growth observed
on bats may represent an overgrowth of normal fungal colonizers of
bat skin and be an indicator of overall poor health, rather than a
primary pathogen.

Contributors: USGS’s National Wildlife Health Center, Cornell
University, the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation, the New York State Department of Health, Disney’s
Animal Kingdom.

Story 1.

Bats are dying by the thousands from who knows what. EEEK!!! Good riddance, you say? Think again. Combined with the loss of bees from Colony Collapse Disorder, this new plague among the voracious bats could have additional, far reaching consequences on agriculture, public health and our increasingly precarious ecological equilibrium. Not to mention we do not, at this time, know whether the disease that is killing the bats will affect humans or be transmissible to humans.

Bats eat insects, especially moths, that threaten crops. They help hold down the mosquito population. A single little brown bat can scarf down up to 1,000 mosquitoes an hour and can live to be 40 years old. Without bats, we’d be knee-deep in bugs. Hell, in Florida we are practically knee-deep now in bugs, I sure don’t want to see this place without our bug eating friends!

“This is definitely unprecedented,” said Lori Pruitt, an endangered-species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Bloomington, Ind. “The hugest concern at this point is that we do not know what it is.”

“Without large populations of bats, there would certainly be an impact on agriculture,” said Barbara French of Bat Conservation International of Austin, Texas.

The syndrome has not been found anywhere else in the world, according to Susi von Oettingen of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who called it “an incredible mystery.”

Disease in Dorset bat cave
BenningtonBanner.com
Wednesday, February 20
JOHN WALLER
DORSET — A mysterious affliction that biologists believe could devastate bat populations in the Northeast has spread to the Dorset Bat Cave, state biologists said Tuesday….

[Scott] Darling (a bat biologist) said lung congestion and pneumonia has also been found in bats with the fungus.

Although Darling said biologists have been wearing HAZMAT suits when studying the caves, there has been no evidence that the syndrome harms humans. Some evidence, however, has suggested that it may be spread by humans, but the Dorset cave complicates this theory, Darling said….

Biologists from the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department detected the presence of the deadly affliction, white nose syndrome, in the cave on Thursday. The cave, also known as the Aeolus Cave on Mount Aeolus in Dorset, is home to the greatest number of hibernating bats in New England each winter, including some endangered species that are protected by the federal government, according to the department.

A bat biologist at the department, Scott Darling, said that normally the cave would have been quiet during hibernation season in February, but on Thursday bats were active and toward the entrance of the cave — abnormal behavior that is a clear sign of the syndrome’s presence.

“We observed the classic symptoms of the syndrome,” he said, “bats flying about outside the cave, bats clustered near the cave entrance, dead bats on the snow and live bats exhibiting the white fungus on their muzzles, for which the affliction is named.”

About 100 emaciated bats were hanging on the rock face outside the cave and about 2,000 to 2,400 were just inside the cave’s entrance, Darling said. Normally, almost all of the bats would have been in the cave’s interior halls, he said. The bats, which were in bad shape, had been losing their fat reserves and could have been searching for food, he said.

The white fungus on the bats’ muzzles was more prevalent in the Dorset cave than in others where the syndrome has been found, Darling said. About 50 bats exhibited the fungus on Thursday, he said, compared to about three to five in other studies.

Largely a mystery to biologists across the nation, white nose syndrome was first found last year in a New York cave by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. When biologists returned to the cave this winter, they found that 90 percent of the cave’s bats had died.

Now, biologists have discovered that the syndrome has infiltrated 11 New York caves, two Vermont sites, including Dorset and the Morris Cave in Danby, and one site in Massachusetts, according to the department. The syndrome has not been found anywhere else in the world, according to Susi von Oettingen of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who called it “an incredible mystery.”

Darling said lung congestion and pneumonia has also been found in bats with the fungus.

Although Darling said biologists have been wearing HAZMAT suits when studying the caves, there has been no evidence that the syndrome harms humans. Some evidence, however, has suggested that it may be spread by humans, but the Dorset cave complicates this theory, Darling said.

The cave, owned and protected by the Nature Conservancy of Vermont, was gated off in the fall of 2004 and has seen little human activity since, only a couple of trips a year, conservancy spokeswoman Emily Boedecker said Tuesday. In the past, the syndrome has been found at caves with heavy human activity; the Dorset cave was the first gated cave where the syndrome was found, Darling said.

Boedecker called Tuesday’s news, “devastating,” and said the conservancy was anxious to find out the cause of the syndrome and how it can help prevent its spread. The conservancy owns and protects two of three caves in Vermont where bats hibernate, she said.

The director of wildlife at the department, John Austin, said the syndrome is, “an issue of very high priority.” He said bats are an important element of the food chain because they eat a lot of insects.

In a winter 2003 count, about 23,000 bats were found hibernating in the Dorset cave, Darling said, a number which he believes is an underestimate because many parts of the cave are still inaccessible. He said little-brown bats and endangered Indiana bats are the most common found in the cave.

The syndrome has effected several species of bats, including gray bats, Ozark big-eared bats and Virginia big-eared bats, which are all endangered. Darling said more than 300,000 bats could already be threatened by the affliction. Bats also have a very low reproductive rate of only one pup per year, he said, making it hard for them to regenerate their population.

He said he did not know of an affliction or disease that has affected bat populations to this extent in the past. Darling spoke by phone, as he was in Virginia on Tuesday at a joint meeting of bat biologist throughout the Eastern United States. He said the meeting was already scheduled, but he would expect the syndrome to be a main topic.

While scientists and animal health experts are searching for the cause of the syndrome, the Vermont Cavers Association voted to adopt the Northeastern Cave Conservancy’s advisory that all caves containing hibernating bats in Vermont be closed to recreational caving until May 15.

On Monday, conservation organizations also petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for immediate action to be taken to prevent further harm to endangered bats, including stopping federal projects that harm bat habitats and closing all bat hibernation sites that are open to the public.

The petition was written by the Center for Biological Diversity and endorsed by Heartwood and Friends of Blackwater Canyon.
============================================

It is not even clear if the fungus around the bats’ noses — something scientists say they have never seen before — is a cause or a symptom. It may be a sign the bats are too sick to groom themselves, said Beth Buckles, a veterinary pathologist at Cornell University.

The die-offs could be caused by bacteria or a virus. Or the bats could be reacting to some toxin or other environmental factor.