- Hello Jeff - We still have an overwhelming majority of
bats that die however, the few that recovered may give hope that some may
form resistance to this disease.
-
- Hopefully, the returned bats will not get ill again,
but if they show signs of illness, they will be removed from the mine again.
-
- Some of the bats were found in April and, it appears
early in the disease. Many of the bats that die, do so in early Winter,
January and February. April could indicate that the bats had some resistance
to the disease and either were able to hold off the illness until Spring
or might have been ill and in the process of getting better. Of course,
there is no evidence of either but there is a hope that one or the other
is the case.
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- Meanwhile, we still have a disease that depletes 90%
of hibernating bats and has left the north east wondering if bats will
go extinct here.
-
- - Patty
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- N.J. biologists tag, return fully recovered bats that
had 'white nose' syndrome to Rockaway Twp. mine
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- Published: Tuesday, November 30, 2010, 8:30 AM
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- Updated: Thursday, December 02, 2010, 4:18 PM
-
-
- Hopping, toad-like along the mesh wall of their dark
pen, six little brown bats alternated between cute and creepy as they scurried
to avoid Jackie Kashmer's white-gloved hands.
-
- Since April, Kashmer's bat rehabilitation center in Alexandria
Township has been nurturing the six bats New Jersey biologists rescued
from certain death. They had been found convulsing and covered with a mysterious
white fungus in their hibernation spot, or "hibernaculum," at
the famous Hibernia mine in Rockaway Township.
-
- "Their wings were like paper. They were so emaciated
and dehydrated when they came here, you couldn't even feed them. I had
to give them injections of electrolytes," Kashmer said as her gentle
grip on one bat sent it into a frenzy of high-pitch peeping.
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- Last week, the six little brown bats Kashmer hand-nursed
to health unwittingly tempted fate again.
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- State biologist Mick Valent, of the state's Endangered
and Non-Game Species Program, returned them to the Hibernia mine for another
winter of hibernation in an experiment scientists hope will uncover more
about the disease that is killing them in droves - and whether there is
any hope for them and the 45 other bat species living in the continental
United States.
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- The effort is part of a larger, multi-faceted effort
coordinated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to study and thwart "white
nose syndrome." Separate hibernation studies also are being conducted
in Pennsylvania this winter using 20 additional little brown bats - all
also rehabilitated by Kashmer after they were rescued from Pennsylvania
caves in April.
-
- "White nose syndrome," or WNS, is named after
the lethal white fungus found on the infected bats' wings and snouts. It
is responsible for killing 90 percent of the wild bats in the northeast
since it was first detected in a New York cave in February 2006, and the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has officially labeled it a disease.
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- The disease has hit especially hard in New Jersey.
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- Once the largest wintering haven for bats that flutter
about the Garden State, the Hibernia mine in Morris County is now more
of a morgue. Where 27,000 to 30,000 bats of multiple species once gathered
each fall to hibernate, only a few hundred hang on the walls now.
-
- "Last spring, before they left hibernation, we found
only about 1,715 bats at the Hibernia mine Two weeks ago, when we expected
most bats would be returning to hibernate for the winter again, we counted
less than 650 that had returned, so it is affecting them even after they
leave hibernation," said Valent.
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- The purpose of the study by New Jersey biologists is
to determine if bats that have recovered from the disease will remain immune
to it. "One question is, are the bats previously affected by this
developing any resistance to white nose syndrome or are they going to become
just as infected when they are placed back into that environment again,"
Valent said.
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- New Jersey has nine species fluttering about the state,
and all have been impacted by WNS, although the little brown bats appear
to be suffering the most.
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- Bats in at least 11 eastern states and Canada are dying,
according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, but the fungus also has been
detected in sites in three more states, including Oklahoma, which means
WNS is making its way toward the heart of bat population in the Southwest.
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- "The disease seems to have its greatest impact during
hibernation," said Valent, noting healthy bats enter their havens,
only for many of them to awaken early and leave their hibernaculum, desperately
trying to feed on insects they will never find in winter skies.
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- Those that do not drop dead are often left scarred and
deformed by the fungus, which tears holes in their skin and wing membranes.
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- "Even those that survive hibernation are weakened.
We've found that impacted bats are a couple of weeks behind healthy bats
after leaving their hibernaculum. Some leave, but die because the fungus
created holes in their wings and they cannot fly to feed," Valent
said.
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- Weakened female bats also have difficulty raising young.
Scientists are finding higher than normal mortality rates among the pups.
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- The six bats raised by Kashmer to be returned to the
Hibernia mine, however, will be different.
-
- "They are fully recovered," she said. "Bats
can survive this thing, and I think that's important to know. When I get
them, after the first 24 hours, their survival rate is 100 percent."
-
- When they are returned to the mine, the six bats will
not be stressed - and maybe the breather they were given will make a difference.
-
- "Bats have anti-fungal compounds in their saliva,
and they are constantly grooming themselves. If some bats have greater
anti-fungal compounds in their saliva, they may be able to combat the fungus
better than others," Valent explained of the test.
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- In the Pennsylvania study, Greg Turner, a biologist with
the state's Game Commission and DeeAnn Reeder, an ecophysiologist at Bucknell
University, hope to determine whether infected bats, even those nursed
back to health, maintain enough of the white nose syndrome fungal spores
on their bodies to become re-infected or infect other bats.
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- "It could be possible the bats that survive hibernation
spread the spores in maternity colonies during the summer. A maternity
colony can have anywhere from 10 bats to 30,000 bats, and maybe it only
takes one with spores to crawl among them to spread it. I think transmission
is something that has not been fully examined," Turner explained.
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- Turner said his first 10 bats will go into an environmental
chamber in a laboratory that will simulate a hibernaculum.
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- It is difficult to fully re-create the humidity found
in a natural bat cave, so Turner is trying to organize a companion project
using the other 10 bats by putting them inside a mine - if he is able to
get an old, sealed mine that is clean of WNS and have it re-opened in time.
-
- For Kashmer, the experiments carry hope for a creature
she adores - and some motherly apprehensions.
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- Rehabilitating wildlife is a state-licensed practice
and Kashmer knows that all wild patients must one day be set free again.
Still, she said she remains concerned about her former patients being left
to confront the deadly, disfiguring disease again.
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- "They plan to be monitoring my bats. That's what
the experiment is about," she said. "So, I would think they will
remove them if they look like they are getting sick again."
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