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Are Spelunkers Carrying the White-Nose Fungus?
Concern that cavers using contaminated equipment may be unwittingly transporting the syndrome responsible for killing thousands of bats from cave to cave. (3:08)
Courtesy of: Assignment Earth
Related:
What is Killing the Bats?
Can scientists stop white-nose syndrome, a new disease that is killing bats in catastrophic numbers?
August 2011 |
By Michelle Nijhuis
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Comments (8)
This seems to be a situation where we simply have to live with being dissatisfied until the source/cause, mode of transmition, and effective treatment of White-Nose Fungus are firmly established. Until that time, the potential environmental threat is simply too great to risk not the taking extreme measures of closing caves to the public and/or cavers - despite whatever cautions people think they are taking. Though some people may be doing their best to avoid taking contaminated equipment into caves, "best efforts" simply means "to the best of our knowledge at this time." There is no such thing as 100% foolproof decontamination when the sites we are talking about exiting and entering are caves! I would venture almost everyone reading this has experienced themselves, or knows of someone whose life has been forever altered, and not in a good way, when "best efforts" simply didn't meet the need at hand.
We can only speculate on the potential devastation should the ecosystem be thrown out of balance by the decimation of bat colonies. Now imagine, what will happen if this isn't brought under control soon and continues to spread throughout North America, then South America, or if it becomes a world wide W-NF pandemic. There are many, very real and catastrophic concerns that are at the core of the decisions being made today. To do nothing would eventually effect us all, making all of us unhappy.
So you see, there is simply no way to make everyone happy. Not the bat people, nor the cavers, not the environmentalists, nor the agriculturalists, and especially not the guano gatherer/farmers. It seems we will have to wait patiently, on the outside of certain caves, and pray that the scientific community quickly identify the hows and whys, so they can get on with the business of developing an effective treatment. (In the mean time I may buy some stock in the makers of OFF!)
Posted by Laurie on August 30,2011 | 09:54 AM
EMFs (electromagnetic fields) affect the growth of yeast and molds. Then 'think' cell phone towers and wifi antennas.
Posted by cem on July 8,2011 | 06:11 PM
Gated caves that have no human access are getting infected at the same rates as open caves. WNS is clearly spread bat to bat. Please follow the facts and not non-scientific guesswork.
Posted by Tom Gilleland on July 3,2011 | 12:18 PM
So sad to see the NGS jump on the bandwagon of rumor rather than science and perpetuate an absolutely unproven hypothesis. After nearly six years of study, there is no validated scientific evidence showing any data that cavers are a vector. There IS a lot of 'may be', 'might be', and 'could be' conversation but no factual demonstration that such a method of contamination ever has occurred or has resulted in propagation of the disease.
Posted by Stephen Fleming on June 30,2011 | 12:52 PM
Do bats migrate? I was under the impression that they did not. But Kevin Westervoorde does have a point in that if caves are not protected, vandals may go there. I do think, though, that lots of tourists or people in general going through caves would be prime suspects in being vectors of disease. People may be going through with coughs, colds, and other infections, not to mention touching cave walls. We can only pray that researchers will be able to find a cure. I felt sorry for the one bat that was euthanized, only to be found without the disease. I think people in general are very ignorant of animal life and do not respect it at all, and it is beginning to show as there are more and more of us.
Posted by Michele Fiala on June 29,2011 | 06:45 PM
was so in HOPE of "understanding" the video, but as a Deaf Person it would NEED to be with CC ability. Did I MISS something in that it was, but I didn't locate the CC??
Posted by Patricia Peterson on June 28,2011 | 07:10 PM
Let's not mention the speed of wns through bat to bat from bat migration, but let's put it all on the cavers.
Don't get all your information from one resource. Cavers a lot of the time are the only people protecting a cave if you close the caves we will not go there anymore but the people who don't care will continue to spread this disease, and vandalize, cavers have adopted decontamination procedures to help not spread wns. The closing of this country's caves will have disastrous affects not only to the caving community but to bat population as well.
Posted by Kevin westervoorde on June 25,2011 | 10:25 PM
Thank you & the naturalists for sharing this information, unknown to most of us, who may be unintentionally harming the very places we love most.
Posted by kathy cramer on June 21,2011 | 02:39 PM