KYLE SEPPANEN: I remember as a kid seeing bats, because we used to have one of those flood lights outside. Infected bats usually die of exhaustion and hunger - either right there in the cave, or shortly after leaving it.Īnd when bat populations started declining around here, people noticed the difference. That burns energy it needs later in the spring. When a bat wakes from hibernation, it needs to get its body temperature back up. Because when fungus grows all over your face and up into your nostrils, you can imagine that’s a little uncomfortable. SHEA: The way white-nose syndrome kills a bat is by interrupting this stoic sleep. Now if this one did have white-nose, we’d see it up front like around the mouth area. GUSICK: Looks like he’s starting to go to the bathroom. This little brown bat is still as a statue - it doesn’t even seem like a living creature. GUSICK: Yeah they don’t move, it’s crazy. GUSICK: He’s not even shivering so he’s not trying to wake up. Interlochen Public Radio A little brown bat hibernating in Keweenaw County’s Delaware Mine. Some of them stir and twitch – Breanna says that means they’ll wake up soon. But there are still a few here and there, hanging from the ceiling, bundled up in their own wings. SHEA: It’s late May, and most of the bats hibernating here have already left the mine. But we’re looking for something else.īREANNA GUSICK: There’s a bat right above your head. A hundred years ago, people came down here in search of copper. SHEA: We’re about a half mile deep in the Delaware mine: one of many abandoned mine shafts in the region. SHEA: I’m walking down a steep, soggy staircase into total darkness - and I’m following Breanna Gusick, a biologist with Bat Conservation International. SHEA: To get a first hand look, I took a trip about as far north as you can go in Michigan: the Keweenaw Peninsula.īREANNA GUSICK: So just be careful, the steps will be a little slippery where the water is. SPRINGER: Today, we’ll check out technology being used to track the spread of this disease - and see if it gives bats a boost.
PATRICK SHEA, BY-LINE: To try and prevent its extinction - and the extinction of other bat species - scientists first need to learn more about the problem and test some solutions. But its population has collapsed in recent years because of white-nose syndrome. Here in the Upper Great Lakes, it used to be abundant. Fish and Wildlife Service is deciding whether to put another bat on the endangered species list: the northern-long eared bat. SPRINGER: This is Points North: a show about the land, water and inhabitants of the Upper Great Lakes. And so when you have a colony that can get into the tens of thousands, that is just unprecedented carnage. And Tina says when a cave gets infected, that spells disaster for the bats inside.ĬHENG: The mortality can be greater than 90 percent on average at a site. Today, the fungus has spread to caves all across North America. SPRINGER: That early case in New York killed off almost an entire colony of an endangered bat species. And so when they’re really highly infected they actually have these little white fuzzy patches of fungal growth on their noses. So it actually digs into their epidermal tissue.
#Radio clock temperature skin
She says those biologists had stumbled upon the first known case of a disease that’s now called “white-nose syndrome.”ĬHENG: It’s a fungus that grows on the skin of bats. SPRINGER: That’s Tina Cheng, a data scientist with Bat Conservation International. TINA CHENG: Instead of seeing, you know, tens of thousands of these bats roosting over the ceiling, they discovered heaps of dead bats on the floor. MORGAN SPRINGER, HOST: In the early 2000s, bat biologists in upstate New York headed deep into a cave where they found an unpleasant surprise. But it's driving research that could advance human’s understanding of bats, and of wildlife disease as a whole. Artificial light is being used to draw in bugs around caves, making an easy meal for bats weakened by disease. But high-tech solutions are in the works.Īudio equipment helps scientists monitor bat populations by listening to them. Now, the fungal infection is threatening the extinction of several bat species. Since white-nose syndrome was first detected in the early 2000s, it’s spread to caves across the continent.
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