WNS Infected Bats Surviving

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WNS Infected Bats Surviving

Postby tncaver » Aug 4, 2011 12:14 pm

Not all bats infected with WNS die according to the following article from Caving News. Some are even multiplying. Read for yourselves.

http://cavingnews.com/20110619-white-no ... -surviving
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Re: WNS Infected Bats Surviving

Postby John Lovaas » Aug 4, 2011 12:59 pm

A nuance of detail sadly lost to the Wisconsin DNR- their current implementation strategy plan; from page 38 of this document-

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/bats/pdf/ ... _Draft.pdf

1. In selected situations (e.g. small colonies, sole WNS detections in the area, other key bat hibernacula in the area at risk, etc.), remove all bats from the colony. Removed bats may be transported to treatment facilities for experimentation, used in critical WNS research, or be euthanized and stored for genetic material.

2. Selective culling of G. destructans-infected bats "and their immediate neighbors" to help determine the role of fungal load and infection rate in subsequent years.

3. Mid-winter containment of infected bat colonies to prevent early emergence and transmission to nearby sites.

4. Exclusion of bats from infected caves.

5. In-situ captive management and propagation to confine the G. destructans-infected colony to that cave, until recovery is possible.

6. Ex-situ captive management and propagation (remove bats from cave).

7. Exclude bats from commercial sites regarded as having a higher risk of human transmission.
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Re: WNS Infected Bats Surviving

Postby Steve Pitts » Aug 4, 2011 4:13 pm

John

It is not clear to me how these steps defined in the WDNR WNS management plan are going to be a benefit to bats. If I were inclined to make a bold statement, I might even go so far as to say the bats would probably be better off if the WDNR did nothing at all.
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Re: WNS Infected Bats Surviving

Postby wyandottecaver » Aug 4, 2011 4:22 pm

The article above is misleading. In the actual study, *some* bats *may* be surving. they essentially said that some bats lived to return to a infected summer roost area over multiple (2) years.....BUT the individuals themselves may not have been infected, or may have been infected late in the preceeding season. That roost was located in ideal habitat yet still saw the same drastic declines noted elsewhere
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Re: WNS Infected Bats Surviving

Postby John Lovaas » Aug 4, 2011 4:57 pm

Steve- I agree completely. As neither of us have Wisconsin driver's licenses, our opinion isn't worth a heck of a lot.

Here's the PDF of the paper cited above-

http://www.fwspubs.org/doi/pdf/10.3996/022011-JFWM-014

from the abstract:

We monitored a maternity colony of little brown myotis Myotis lucifugus on Fort Drum Military Installation in northern New York in 2009 and 2010 for impacts associated with white-nose syndrome. Declines in colony numbers presumed to be attributed to white-nose syndrome were initially discovered in the spring 2009. Although colony numbers have continued to decline, we determined that a minimum of 12 individual banded female little brown myotis survived over multiple years despite exposure to white-nose syndrome. Our results also provide evidence that 14 of 20 recaptured female little brown myotis were able to heal from wing damage and infection associated with white-nose syndrome within a given year, and seven of eight recaptures from both May to August 2009, and May to July 2010 showed evidence of reproduction.
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