Holy smokes, Batman! Something is killing the bats!

Okay, so a cheesy intro to a very serious topic. By now many people have heard of White Nose Syndrome, a disease that is killing bats. The fungus that is linked with the disease was first found in a cave in upstate New York in 2006, and has since spread as far west as Oklahoma. For reasons that aren't entirely clear yet, the fungus shows up on the bat's muzzle, hence the name White Nose Syndrome, and seems to cause them to wake up during hibernation. They use up their stored energy and die.

This is alarming on a number of levels. Bats eat thousands of mosquitoes each night and pollinate thousands of plants, but there is another totally selfish reason to be concerned about this epidemic - the effect it is having on recreational caving. In 2008, authorities began questioning how the disease was traveling from cave to cave, and the idea was that people, particularly recreational cavers, were inadvertently spreading the fungus on their gear. Cavers were advised to clean their gear after each trip in a cave, and a few conservation groups and cave owners began voluntarily closing caves with known bat populations.

Fast forward two years to 2010. Caves are now closed in more than 20 states. Some caves as far west as Arizona and New Mexico have been closed to slow the spread of this disease. With nearly 12,000 members of the National Speleological Society and 200 grottos, there is a fairly large community of cave enthusiasts being impacted by these cave closings. For a sport that is already somewhat misunderstood, will White Nose Syndrome kill it in addition to bats?

For more information about White Nose Syndrome, cave closures, and what you can do to help, please visit http://www.fws.gov/whitenosesyndrome/ or http://www.caves.org/WNS/ .