Parks Canada crews are at work in Alberta’s bat caves, spreading a blend of bacteria to try to save the flying night mammals from a deadly, and accelerating, fungal infection.
Nina Veselka, a biologist with Parks Canada, has already seen the effects of the infection at a cave in Jasper National Park, where weary bats had fallen from the limestone walls and struggled to survive from the cave floor.
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“We could be looking at, like, local extinction,” Veselka said of the cave.
The scourge is white-nose syndrome and threatens Alberta’s entire hibernating bat population.
It’s caused by a fungus that grows in cold and damp areas, such as bat caves, and can enter into the tissues of bats. It appears on the nocturnal creatures as a fuzzy, white growth on their snouts and wings.
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The fungus causes hibernating bats to wake up, draining precious fat reserves that can’t be replenished in winter, putting the bats at risk of starvation.
The fungus poses no risk to humans but can spread and kill as much as 98 per cent of a bat colony.
I am saddened by this. Hope it works. Still haven’t seen any bats here in WA.