A draft conservation plan for the federally endangered Virginia big-eared bat is out for public comment through March 1. 

It’s no secret that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a hotspot of biological diversity. Not only does it offer a range of environmental conditions to support plant and animal life, no ocean or glacier has disturbed it for over a million years, giving species lots of time to evolve.

Groups file intent to sue Forest Service 

There’s more bad news for bats following winter surveys that detected the deadly-to-bats white nose syndrome in four new counties — Madison, Montgomery, Rowan and Gaston.

Unfortunately, more undeserved prejudice exists about bats than any other animal, except, of course, serpents. 

In European lore, vampires (a word derived from the Serbian “wampir”) were bloodsucking ghosts, dead men’s souls that siphoned blood from sleeping victims.

Sarah Davis loves bats. They’ve been the wintertime residents of Linville Caverns for as long as she can remember, a marker of the seasons she looks forward to each year. The cave, a commercial cavern near Marion, has been in Davis’ family since the 1940s — she and the bats go way back. 

“There would be hundreds of them in the winter, and I absolutely loved them,” Davis recalls.

Biologists recently confirmed white-nose syndrome at a third site in North Carolina, meaning two counties are now positive for the disease that has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the eastern United States.

The disease was confirmed late last month in Yancey County. It was previously discovered in a retired Avery County mine and in a cave at Grandfather Mountain State Park.

“We knew that white-nose syndrome was coming and began preparing for its arrival, but we have a lot of work to do to address the impact of this disease on bats and our natural systems” said Chris McGrath, wildlife diversity program coordinator in the N.C. Wildlife Commission’s Wildlife Management Division.

While much remains to be learned about white-nose syndrome, there is evidence that people may inadvertently spread the fungus believed to cause the disease from cave-to-cave. Therefore, the most important step people can take to help bats is staying out of caves and mines.

While there are no known direct human health effects of the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, the impact upon humans, other wildlife, and agriculture as a result of declines in bat populations could be substantial. Bats play a significant role as night-flying insect predators.

At this time, the fungus appears to grow on bat skin in the cave environment during hibernation. Infected bats may spread the fungal spores to other bats and roosts during the warmer summer months; however, the fungus only grows in a narrow range of temperatures (41 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit) in high humidity conditions.

White-nose syndrome, the disease that has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the Eastern United States, has been discovered in a retired Avery County mine and in a cave at Grandfather Mountain State Park, marking the arrival of the disease in North Carolina, according to a media alert sent out today (Feb. 9) by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.

On Feb. 1, a team of Commission biologists were conducting a bat inventory of the closed Avery County mine where they saw numerous bats displaying symptomatic white patches of fungus on their skin. Five bats from the mine were sent to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study unit at the University of Georgia for testing, which confirmed the presence of white-nose syndrome.

In late January, a team of state, federal, and private biologists were conducting a bat inventory of a cave at Grandfather Mountain when they discovered a single dead bat. Following state white-nose syndrome surveillance protocols, the bat was sent for testing and it has been confirmed for white-nose syndrome.

“White-nose syndrome is confirmed in Virginia and Tennessee, so we expected we would be one of the next states to see the disease,” said Gabrielle Graeter, a biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission. “This discovery marks the arrival of one of the most devastating threats to bat conservation in our time.”

In the Northeast, the disease has decimated some species of bats. It seems to be most fatal during the winter months, when hundreds of bats are hibernating together in caves and mines. It’s not known if the disease will similarly affect all species in all regions of the country, though bat mortality and the diversity of species affected in the Northeast suggest the impacts will be significant.

The discovery of white-nose syndrome comes as Commission biologists work through bat inventory and white-nose syndrome surveillance efforts at numerous caves and mines in Western North Carolina this winter as part of a grant awarded by the Service to several states on the leading edge of the disease’s spread.

North Carolina is home to three federally endangered bats, the Virginia big-eared, Indiana, and gray. Virginia big-eared bats are known from the.

“The discovery does not bode well for the future of many species of bats in western North Carolina,” said Sue Cameron with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Although researchers are working hard to learn more about the disease, right now so little is known. There has been some evidence that humans may inadvertently spread the disease from cave to cave, so one simple step people can take to help bats is to stay out of caves and mines.”

“Cavers are passionate about what they do and we truly understand that asking them to stay out of caves is no small request and we greatly appreciate their sacrifice,” said Cameron, noting that the western North Carolina caving club, Flittermouse Grotto, has been very supportive of efforts to protect the area’s bats.

In 2009, fearing the disease could be transferred from cave to cave by humans, the Service released a cave advisory asking people to refrain from entering caves in states where white-nose syndrome has been confirmed and all adjoining states. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission holds a protective easement on the mine and both it and the Grandfather Mountain cave have been gated and closed to the public for years to protect hibernating bats.

Read an in-depth article about the deadly bat syndrome that was published in The Smoky Mountain News in November 2010

A podcast released by Great Smoky Mountains National Park outlines efforts to save bats from White-nose syndrome, a potentially fatal disease sweeping through the Smokies’ bat population.

The park is home to at least 11 species of bats, a primary group of flying mammals that play a critical role in the health of ecosystems by consuming forest and agricultural crop insects — such as moths, beetles and mosquitoes.

In the winter of 2010, two bats in a park cave tested positive for a newly described fungus, Geomyces destructans, which is thought to be the cause of White-nose syndrome.

To help prevent the unintentional spread of the fungus, the park closed all of its 16 caves and two mine complexes to people in 2009.

In addition to the podcast, a new bat exhibit has been installed at the park’s Sugarlands Visitor Center.

“The educational materials provide a wealth of information on bat biology, their roosting and foraging behavior, the potential implications of white-nose syndrome and what researchers and biologists are doing to manage this threat, as well as how the public can help protect bats,” said Bill Stiver, park wildlife biologist.

Produced by Great Smoky Mountains Association, the podcast is posted on the park’s website, www.nps.gov/grsm/photosmultimedia/wns-bat-video.htm.

New data suggest that bats, like birds, may follow specifically defined routes when migrating rather than simply migrating in a dispersed way across a broad area. Wind energy turbines located in these routes may cause fatalities of migrating bats.

As new sources of energy such as wind farms are being built in greater numbers, their impact on other aspects of the environment are getting attention.

The migratory behavior of bats, a topic that has received little attention in the past, is the subject of new study. Wind turbines have been the cause of many bat fatalities, but these installations also offer a new opportunity to examine bat migration habits. This is because the majority of bat fatalities caused by wind turbines around the world have involved migratory bats during fall migration.

Over a period of seven years, scientists used acoustic monitoring and carcass searches at nine wind energy facilities across southern Alberta, Canada, to determine if bat activity and fatality were concentrated in certain areas or evenly distributed across the landscape. Their findings indicate that as bats migrated, they concentrated along selected routes at night and sought daytime roosting sites. Migratory tree-roosting bats, including hoary bats, eastern red bats, and silver-haired bats, are the North American species most affected by wind farms.

The full text of this article, “Geographic Variation in Activity and Fatality of Migratory Bats at Wind Energy Facilities can be read at www2.allenpress.com/pdf/mamm-90-06-1341-1349.pdf.