White Nose Syndrome Page

White-nose syndrome is a disease caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, that affects hibernating bats. WNS is currently in 26 states and the fungus has been found in three more. Seven bat species have been confirmed with WNS, and the fungus has been found on five more. Several species of bat seem resistant to the disease, but some species are seeing mortality of up to 98%. Due to impacts from this disease, the Northern long-eared bat is now protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Research on treatments is progressing, and last May several bats were successfully treated and released in Missouri. Kristen Alvey represented the NSS at the USFWS WNS Treatment workshop in July. In September, USFWS awarded 2.5 million in grants including a small grants program.

The White Nose Syndrome Rapid Response Fund is still an important funding source for researchers as much federal funding is limited to federal or state agencies. So far the NSS has provided over $115,000 of funding for 22 research grants. Due to some limits on federal grants, there are still places where our funds can fill in gaps. This year we awarded a grant for a study on tracking bats near Lake Ontario.

At the 2015 Missouri Convention we had a WNS roundtable and presentations by USFWS and USFS. I hope to have agencies participating at the Nevada Convention (July 18-22, 2016) as well.

I have been working on improving communications. There is an email list where we send out WNS information among cavers, you can sign up at http://lists.caves.org/mailman/listinfo/wns. There is also a facebook page for NSS WNS Liaison where I am posting news. Please contact me at WNSLiaison@caves.org if you can help me with sending new content and links to the webmasters (no technical skills needed).

BatWeek is Oct 25-31, let the world know how much we appreciate bats!