White Nose Syndrome

Here is the long- expected message about white nose. White nose is a fungus that lives in caves. Scientists are unsure of the exact effects that the fungus has on the bats. I was told by my boss Chris that the fungus gets into the bats body and eats it from the inside out. This is what we are looking for evidence of on the wing membrane. It starts as little dots, and they look like small punctures. Punctures occur naturally so we look for the ones that are obviously fungus. In some pictures I have seen the wing only has half of the membrane left. In Chris' career he has noticed locations that used to have fifty bats a night now average one to five.

There are lots of precautions that we have to adhere to in order to avoid spreading the disease. We wear latex gloves when processing bats and don't let the bats touch our clothing. We bleach the nets and our boots between sites. Recently we have ordered painters suits to wear over our clothes. We toss them at the end of each site so we don't spread spores.