Millions Of Bats Dying From White-Nose Syndrome

A rare disease called white-nose syndrome is sweeping across North America killing thousands of bats in the process.

The disease appears to target brown bats and so far more than 1 million of them have succumbed to it, a fact that researchers fear could lead to the species becoming extinct.

The trouble with this disease is that it thrives in an environment that bats enjoy; one that is dark and damp thus it is hard to avoid.

The disease presents as a fungus that grows on the body of the bat, disrupting their hibernation and eventually killing it.

Thomas Kunz and colleagues from Boston University studied 17 years of data pertaining to bat colonies and realized that something was very wrong, and upon deeper probing, they were able to make the connection.

“We went in to some caves and couldn’t step on the floor because it was littered with dead bats,” Thomas Kunz from Boston University told BBC News.

“Before white-nose, the population was stable, in fact populations were increasing slightly,” said Dr Kunz, “But when we plotted out the new data… it was pretty clear there was a massive die-off.

“Strictly from this data, we predict that, in 20 years, this regional population is likely to go extinct, but that’s making an assumption that there will be no recovery period.”

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