Pennsylvania could be largely devoid of bats within two to three years.
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That's the startling and sad outlook foreseen by Greg Turner as the sudden and mysterious white-nose syndrome fungus sweeps through the state.
"I don't think anyone thinks we can stop it. We'll easily be losing millions of bats. The best we can do is try to slow it until a miracle cure is found. But I think that's pretty slim," says Turner, Pennsylvania Game Commission biologist and endangered mammal specialist.
"Recovery will span generations."
A few years ago, Turner, of State College, was studying whether wind turbines posed a substantial risk to bat populations. He never expected to be witness to this kind of massive die-off.
It was Turner, along with Bucknell University biologist DeeAnn Reeder, who first found the dreaded white noses and wings in a colony of hibernating bats in a former iron mine in Mifflin County in January. Recreational cavers who had found dead bats in the cave the previous spring alerted Turner.
A few weeks later, the first dead bats started dropping from the sky outside an abandoned coal mine near Carbondale, Lackawanna County.
Back at the Mifflin County cave, 95 percent of the bats died.
Since then, WNS has been found in bat colonies at 10 sites in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Mifflin and Centre counties. Schuylkill County is likely to soon be added to the list.
Of the nine species of bats found in Pennsylvania, six have been found with WNS. Only tree bats, which don't tend to colonize during winter, have been spared.
WNS recently leapfrogged south into Virginia and West Virginia., where some caves are known to have hundreds of thousands of wintering bats.
But Lancaster County will not be spared long, Turner fears. He predicts that likely this summer or winter big brown bats and other species of bats found here will contract the devastating fungus.
"You're on the leading edge. It's on the way to you," Turner says.
The fungus first appeared on bats in Albany County, N.Y., in the winter of 2006-2007. Bats mysteriously started flying from caves into the countryside while it was still winter, a death sentence.
Since then, WNS has rapidly but haphazardly marched into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and now, southern states.
Scientists from the states, federal government and academia have been pooling frantic efforts to learn about the disease. But we still don't know where it came from or even if the fungus is killing the bats, or it is just a symptom.
Death seems mostly to come from depleted fat reserves before winter hibernation is over. Some bats die in their caves and mines, but many fly away before winter is over and perish across the landscape.
There is no evidence that the fungus affects birds or other mammals such as humans.
It's believed bats give the disease to each other but it's also speculated that cavers may have inadvertently helped its spread.
For that reason, there is a voluntary moratorium on recreational caving in Pennsylvania and other states. And the Game Commission is encouraging owners of private caves to close entries.
So far, commercial caves are not being closed as it's felt visitors in the vast caves don't rub against the sides and spread the fungus.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission also has stopped monitoring bat populations in caves except to monitor infected populations or to gain important WNS research.
The fact that most bats cluster together in colonies to hibernate over the winter is proving deadly. Ninety percent of the bats in Pennsylvania overwinter in mines, mostly abandoned ones.
There are more than 5,000 mines in the state and Turner and other bat researchers have only documented bats in a small number of them, so it's hard to get a handle of both the extent of bats and the spread of WNS among them.
Eight months ago, the Game Commission enlisted the public to help them get a handle on the spread of the disease (see sidebar on this page).
If bats are nearly wiped out, it will be a long, slow recovery. Hopefully, there will be bats with a resistance to the fungus that will survive.
It is hoped that that resistance will be passed onto young. But since bats only have one pup a year, it will take a long time to rebuild the population.
Whether you like bats or they creep you out, the loss of them has ramifications for us all.
A bat eats an estimated 2 pounds of insects a day. Multiply that by millions of bats and in a few years, suddenly there are thousands of tons of bugs not being eaten across Pennsylvania.
Farmers will lose a valuable guardian of their crops. People hanging out around lakes may find more bites.
Recently, Turner and fellow bat researcher Reeder were talking. Reeder commented on how depressing it was to have to describe, in dire terms, what was happening to bats in interview after interview.
"It always sounds like the sky is falling," she lamented.
"But yeah, it really is falling," Turner replied. "All we can do is tell people the truth and what's going on and hope something happens."
REPORT DEAD BATS• Report if you find five or more dead or dying bats, or find a bat with a white fungus on its face or wings.•
Report on-line by clicking on "Report Sick Bats" link on Pennsylvania Game Commission Web site www.pgc.state.pa.us.•
Or, call the PGC's Southeast Regional Office at 610-926-3136.•
Do not handle the bats.E-mail: acrable@lnpnews.com
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