Disease ravaging bat populations

Sometime after making a star appearance at Halloween, bats in the mid-Atlantic region will fly into caves for their winter hibernation. If a disturbing trend holds, most won't fly back out in spring.

White nose syndrome has nearly wiped out bats in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont. A survey of six species at 42 sites in those states found their numbers have declined by almost 90 percent.

The long suspected culprit, an aggressive fungus called Geomyces destructans, has been definitively linked to the disease, according to a study published last week in the journal Nature. It gives hope that a treatment could be found to slow the progress of the disease, wildlife biologists said. But it might already be too late to save some bats in the Northeast.

Two species could become extinct in seven years, scientists said. In 2009, biologists said 1 million bats had dropped dead in three years. The significant loss of insect-eating bats could lead to greater damage to agricultural crops and force farmers to spend more on pesticides.

Biologists who've sounded an alarm about the disease since it was discovered at Howes Cave near Albany five years ago seem resigned to losing several species in the region, starting with the once-abundant little brown bat.

Geomyces destructans burns holes in the membrane that allows bats to flap their wings.

-- The Washington Post