The Magazine of The Sierra Club
Meet "Team Fat Bat"—Scientists Try to Save Victims of White-Nose Syndrome
Happy Bat Week 2019
Tourist attractions like central Texas's Bracken Cave—where an estimated 20 million Mexican free-tailed bats roost from March through October—not only educate people about bats’ importance to our shared ecosystem but also help transform people’s attitudes about bats, inspiring wonder from fear.
Photo by Skip Hobbie
A team of Bat Conservation International scientists are conducting a crucial study in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where bats make their winter homes in the region’s many abandoned copper mines. Here, the scientists are creating a “bug buffet.”
Photo by Kristin Tieche
One of the species heaviest hit by WNS, the mouse-eared little brown bat hibernates in abandoned copper mines such as Michigan's Adventure Mine. Little brown bat populations have declined by approximately 90 percent in North America as a result of WNS.
Photo by Kristin Tieche
The study will not disturb hibernating bats, but rather will create optimal conditions for the animals to fatten up so they can survive winter.
Photo by Kristin Tieche
In North America, 15 bat species have been affected by the WNS fungus so far. Two very affected species, the big brown bat (pictured here) and the little brown bat, rely on old copper mines for hibernation—including Michigan's Adventure Mine, which is actively working with Bat Conservation International to help prevent the virus's spread.
Photo by Kristin Tieche
Nonhibernating bats, like the Mexican free-tailed bat, do not succumb to WNS, but they can become carriers of the fungus. Earlier this year, Pd, the fungus that causes WNS, was detected for the first time at Bracken Cave in central Texas.
Photo by Skip Hobbie
The “Batnado” emergence at Bracken Cave, a natural sanctuary for bats and other animals, draws in all kinds of nature lovers eager to witness the phenomenon.
Photo by Skip Hobbie
Earlier this year, the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome was also detected in California for the first time. Bug-eating bats provide free pest control for the state’s prodigious agriculture.
Photo by Adrienne Johnson
Researchers and volunteers from California's Yolo County region have begun officially counting the estimated 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats that live under Interstate 80 outside of Sacramento.
Photo by Adrienne Johnson
These Mexican free-tailed bats in Northern California's Yolo County prey on moths that could destroy the nearby rice fields. Counting the bats will determine whether the population is growing or in decline.
Photo by Kristin Tieche
Corky Quirk, founder and executive director of Northern California Bats (a.k.a. NorCal Bats)—a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of bats—holds a young pallid bat.
Photo by Kristin Tieche
Today kicks off Bat Week, an annual, international celebration designed to raise awareness of the amazing yet often stigmatized creatures so vital to the health of our ecosystems. Although seldom seen, bats around the world are hard at work each night—hunting pests, pollinating flowers, and spreading seeds to grow new plants and trees.
In our humble opinion, the underdog species so often associated with Halloween iconography and general morbidity deserves some extra TLC this Bat Week—2019, after all, has been a rough year for bats. That's because Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome—a disease that disrupts bats' winter sleep, causing them to expend too much energy as the snow-hued fungus grows over their noses and wings—was detected for the first time in California and central Texas. WNS originated in Eurasia, whose bats have evolved to develop immunity to it, and began ravaging certain species of hibernating bats in northeastern North America in 2006. To date, more than 6 million bats have succumbed to the disease.
Fortunately, bat scientists and advocates are responding quickly. This year, for instance, a team of scientists affiliated with Bat Conservation International began conducting a unique study in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where bats make their winter homes in the region's many abandoned copper mines. Designed to help WNS-afflicted bats survive winter, it involves creating “bug buffets,” by attracting moths to UV lights hung on tree branches. The idea is to fatten bats up before hibernation, in case they wake up early due to the irritating effects of white-nose syndrome. If successful, the “Fat Bat” model can be replicated anywhere WNS threatens bats.
The Fat Bat study is highlighted in The Invisible Mammal, an award-winning short film from 2016 that director Kristin Tieche is currently developing into a feature. Check out these (very educational!) stills from the film, and please enjoy a happy, bat-population-boosting Bat Week.