The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced on October 6 that it is distributing nearly $1.6 million in grants to learn more about and manage the spread of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in bats. More than a million bats have died due to the disease since it was positively identified in 2007. The six approved grants include detailed studies on Geomyces destructens, the fungus linked to the syndrome, how the fungus moves between caves, its persistence in the environment, population evaluations to determine which bats may be most susceptible and if there is any resistance. The grants came primarily through a congressional appropriation for WNS work as well as the FWS's Preventing Extinction program, reports the Wildlife Management Institute.

In February 2006, a caver near Albany, New York first photographed bats with white noses and noticed several dead bats in the cave. The following winter, New York Department of Environmental Conservation biologists documented WNS, and found bats behaving erratically during hibernation and several hundred dead bats in multiple caves. Since then, WNS has been found in hibernacula (caves and mines where bats hibernate) in states from New Hampshire to Tennessee and is now expected to be as far west as Oklahoma. It also has been found in Canada. Seven species of bats are currently affected, predominantly in the Northeast, and including two federally listed endangered species?the Indiana bat and the gray bat (or gray myotis). In some hibernacula, as many as 90 to 100 percent of the bats are dying.

G. destructens thrives in the cold, humid conditions found in bat hibernacula. Typically, affected bats have a white fungus growing on their muzzles and other parts of their bodies and lack the body fat necessary to survive until spring. They also exhibit uncharacteristic behavior, such as moving to cold parts of the hibernaculum and flying during the day and during cold weather when their insect food source is not available.

How the fungus is spread remains largely speculative. Thought primarily to be through bat-to-bat contact, WNS transmission as a result of human activity in caves is suspected to contribute. As a result, public land management agencies have blocked access to caves and mines on federal lands. The Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service has closed caves and abandoned mines in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas until July 2011. In September, the FWS issued guidance banning access to caves and mines on all national wildlife refuges.

With so little known about WNS and the fact that the disease has had such a devastating effect in such a short time, the FWS grants from could provide critical new information about how to protect hibernating bats. ?(jas)