MexicanFreetailedBat_WhiteNoseSyndrome_Odegard_Dianne_AustinTX_31August2020_Reel4033.mp3

Dianne Odegard [00:00:00] Well, white nose syndrome, of course, is a disease that, a fungal disease, that has killed really untold millions of bats in the United States since it was discovered in a cave up in upstate New York, in 2000, in the winter of 2006 and '7.

Dianne Odegard [00:00:22] And it's, you know, there has been a lot of research on white nose syndrome since then and it continues there. It lacks funding, of course, as much research about wild animals does.

Dianne Odegard [00:00:41] But, the disease itself is called white nose syndrome. The cause, the fungal cause of that disease, is, is a fungus that grows in cool cave ecosystems. So, so, the disease itself, which affects only bats, no other animal that, that we know of, and not humans, takes hold on cave-hibernating bats.

Dianne Odegard [00:01:15] So the fungus is in the caves, it is, it grows well in these cool, moist cave environments. The bats that hibernate in those areas can get the fungus on them that eventually can burrow into their skin and destroy skin tissue. It also wakes them up from hibernation.

Dianne Odegard [00:01:35] And in an area like New York, where they have more of a true winter than we do here in Texas, those bats are awakened and their skin is irritated. They've been hibernating. They've depleted much of their fat reserves, and they go out to try to feed. And, of course, in the middle of the winter, there's nothing to eat. That's actually how they discovered the disease, was finding hundreds of dead bats in the snow outside of a particular cave up in upstate New York.

Dianne Odegard [00:02:09] So it has since spread from one state to, I think, 34, now, spread across the country. It is in Texas. The fungus is in Texas. And the disease has been found in some bat species in Texas. Not in a free-tailed. We, we believe, and hope, that Mexican free-tailed bats will not actually be affected by the disease. They can have a fungus on them, but not the disease, because they're not hibernators. Mexican free-tailed bats are bats that live in some caves where other bats hibernate, but they don't hibernate themselves. They, they go into torpor for days at a time, occasionally in the winter. But they're not, they're not hibernating over the course of a winter. So we have not seen any Mexican free-tailed bats with the disease of white nose syndrome. And we hope that that stays true into the future.

Dianne Odegard [00:03:12] So white nose syndrome is something that affects only bats and has killed millions and millions of bats. It has been studied, and continues to be steady. There is not a cure for it. However, we are hoping for some immunity in some bat species.

Dianne Odegard [00:03:33] The bats, the fungus actually came from a, some caves in Europe. It was probably brought to the United States. We don't know for sure, but the assumption is it was probably brought on the clothing or gear of people who had been in these European caves, to American caves.

Dianne Odegard [00:03:57] So we can't really prevent the disease because there's no way to go into the cave ecosystems and spray a fungicide on one fungus that doesn't have disastrous effect on, on other biological entities in, in those complex ecosystems.

Dianne Odegard [00:04:24] So, it's, it's a tragedy and it's something that we hope that bats in the United States will be able to fight off before some of these species are actually extinct. There is that possibility.