Plague marching west: researchers study bats to stop their demise

Scientists work to stay ahead of white nose syndrome, a deadly fungus that has killed millions of bats in the US and Canada

Kathleen McLaughlin in Monarch, Montana

Thu 18 Oct 2018 09.00 BSTLast modified on Thu 18 Oct 2018 16.59 BST

Nate Fuller was just starting out as a bat scientist nine years ago when he entered a massive cave in rural Pennsylvania to look for live animals. Instead, he found himself wading through a distressing muck, the decomposing bodies of thousands upon thousands of dead bats.

That was in the early years of white nose syndrome, the creeping, lethal fungus that has decimated North America’s bat population, killing millions of bats and sparking frantic research and conservation efforts across the United States and Canada.

In Fuller’s case, that traumatic discovery changed the trajectory of his career and led him here this month, to a remote cave site in central Montana, where he is part of a team of bat researchers led by the Wildlife Conservation Society studying the hibernation of western bat populations.

“It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen,” Fuller remembered of his Pennsylvania experience.

Today, research related to white nose syndrome, one of the most devastating wildlife diseases of modern times, could be the only way to ensure that bats continue to survive.

Across the western United States and Canada, these scientists are nearing the end of one of the most comprehensive studies ever of the hibernation habits of bats. In three years, they have captured and studied 1,500 bats across seven US states and two Canadian provinces and several species. Most bat studies focus on small, specific populations in fixed areas but this one is tracking a whole region, trying to figure out which bats will make it through the coming plague.

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