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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – A team of wildlife experts led by UC Davis called today for a national fight against a new fungus that has killed more than 1 million bats in the eastern United States and is spreading fast throughout North America.
“If we lose bats, we lose keystone species in some communities,
predators that consume enormous numbers of insects, and beautiful
wildlife species that are important parts of North America’s
biodiversity,” said Janet Foley, a UC Davis professor of veterinary
medicine at the Center for Vectorborne Diseases.
Foley and her co-authors’ call to action appears today online in the
Early View section of the journal Conservation Biology.
Bats are essential members of natural ecosystems, hunting insects,
pollinating plants and scattering seeds, Foley said. “Bats do the
jobs at night that birds do during the day. But because they are most
active in darkness, few people are aware of how many bats live around
us and how valuable they are.”
The new fungal disease has been named “white-nose syndrome.”
Scientists think the fungus, which normally lives in soil, somehow
traveled to cave walls where bats hibernate in winter and began
infecting the animals’ facial skin and wing membranes.
Sick bats appear to be coated with frost. They fly more than normal,
which uses up fat reserves, and also lose water at a faster rate than
normal. Disoriented, they move to exposed places, such as cave
entrances.
Eventually, they starve, freeze or die of dehydration.
The first infected bats were found by a cave explorer near Albany,
N.Y., in February 2006. Since then, infected bats have been found
northward to Ontario and Quebec in Canada, south to Tennessee and
west to Oklahoma. The authors write that they expect white-nose
syndrome to cross the Rocky Mountains and enter California in the
next several years.
There are 23 species of bats in California that hibernate in caves,
and so are vulnerable to white-nose syndrome.
Foley said the fungus does not appear to be a threat to people or
animals other than bats.
The National Wildlife Health Center, a program of the U.S. Geological
Survey, identified the white-nose fungus, Geomyces destructans, in
2007.
“In the three years since its discovery, white-nose syndrome has
changed the focus of bat conservation in North America,” said Foley.
“A national response is required, and our epidemiological roadmap is
designed to help emerging state and national plans to combat
white-nose syndrome across the United States.”
Foley and her collaborators developed their recommendations at a
workshop in Colorado in August funded by the National Park Service.
The authors’ recommendations include: an outbreak investigation
network that would establish a standard diagnosis and case
definitions; bat population monitoring; and improved public awareness
of the problem. “Scientists, policymakers and members of the public
will all have a voice in the coming debate over the best course of
action,” Foley said. They also call for further studies of chemical
and biological agents known to kill the fungus but not yet proven
safe for bats, as well as study of treatments for similar diseases.
Foley’s co-authors are: Deana Clifford, a research associate at the
UC Davis Wildlife Health Center and associate wildlife veterinarian
at the California Department of Fish and Game’s Wildlife
Investigations Lab in Sacramento; Kevin Castle, a wildlife
veterinarian at the National Park Service’s Biological Resource
Management Division in Fort Collins, Colo.; Paul Cryan, a research
biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Fort Collins; and Richard
Ostfeld, a senior scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystems
Studies in Millbrook, N.Y.
Additional information:
* Full text of study, “Investigating and Managing the Rapid Emergence of White Nose Syndrome…”
* Janet Foley
* U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
* Bat Conservation International
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