Another sickening misrepresentation...

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Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby LukeM » Jun 14, 2012 9:55 am

From the Calgary Herald's article, Popular exploration cave near Hinton remains closed to protect bats.

While humans aren’t affected by the disease, they can be carriers and move the disease from cave to cave during recreational exploration.


Glad the Herald finished off the science necessary to know that that's possible. It gets worse...

He wishes explorers would sanitize their equipment before they enter new caves because white fungus spores are carried on boots and clothing, but there’s little possibility of enforcing such rules.

This type of human contamination is likely the reason the disease struck four provinces and 16 U.S. states.


Either the Herald is being fed piss poor information or they're simply making things up. I'm curious if wildlife biologist Dave Hobson is comfortable having his name attached to an article that makes such gross assumptions with so little scientific merit. No mention is made of the primary mode of transmission or how it continues its march regardless of closures. :down:
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby BrianC » Jun 14, 2012 10:12 am

It will continue to be grossly exaggerated while funding is available, then we will hear nothing about it, although the ESA will have strict regulations for anyone that walks outside their home and inadvertently spreads spores that affect all living things.
:shrug:
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby steven.millett » Jun 15, 2012 6:46 am

Unfortunately, at the WNS conference last week, the possibility of GD being carried out of a cave on a persons gear (or person themselves) was scientifically confirmed. Regardless of what we want to hear, we will never be able to be 100% sure we aren't carrying WNS when going to multiple caves. Decon reduces the risks, as does showering, cleaning our cars and not going to caves one after the other (days, or even weeks apart). GD also can still be found in caves year round, even during the summer after bats have left.

Our best bet, at least in the northeast is to go with the fact that WNS has totally saturated our area. And as long as we limit caving to non- hibernation season (as to not disturb weakened bats) and that we do not travel to non-WNS or area's that are not 100% saturated, we won't make anything worse.

I think that USFW will come down more strictly on areas like TAG, which are just getting introduced to WNS.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby Scott McCrea » Jun 15, 2012 8:01 am

The human carrier has always been plausible, now it is confirmed. So, how good are humans at carrying, transporting and depositing the spores. I suspect we suck.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby BrianC » Jun 15, 2012 9:08 am

steven.millett wrote:Unfortunately, at the WNS conference last week, the possibility of GD being carried out of a cave on a persons gear (or person themselves) was scientifically confirmed.


When you say scientifically confirmed, What paper can I review that states the confirmed research? Or, is this just hearsay? I know that Gd spores, or at least similar spores have been found in caves with no bats, but are not thought to be specific to WNS spread.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby LukeM » Jun 15, 2012 3:07 pm

Steve, was it confirmed that humans can carry Gd spores, or that we can actually transmit/spread the disease (infect bats) as the article is implying? This isn't just semantics; it's critical question that as far as I know has no answer. We don't, as far as I know, know whether it is functionally likely or even possible to pick up spores and then transport and deposit them in sufficient quantities and with the right conditions present to successfully infect bats. As Peter Youngbaer stated in another thread, we don't know the multiplicity of infection, and that's just once factor in whether or not a caver would be a likely source of WNS.

I definitely recognize that it's a possibility that needs to be taken into consideration, but stating it as fact without a scientific basis is misleading.

Anyway, the part that bothered me the most was the part about how the reason WNS is in 16 states and and 4 provinces is "likely" to be due to human contamination. I would really like to know who the source of that tidbit was. If they have any sort of training in the sciences they may want to take a refresher course, or apply at the CBD.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby BrianC » Jun 15, 2012 3:54 pm

LukeM wrote:
Anyway, the part that bothered me the most was the part about how the reason WNS is in 16 states and and 4 provinces is "likely" to be due to human contamination. I would really like to know who the source of that tidbit was. If they have any sort of training in the sciences they may want to take a refresher course, or apply at the CBD.

http://forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=14133 This should tell the story for anyone really wanting to know why this stuff has escalated into the news.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby steven.millett » Jun 15, 2012 8:32 pm

The caver Hazel Barton presented an experiment she identifying GD on caving gear after going to an infected cave. Its a pretty unbiased experiment I think. The fungi - biologist shared that people are typically very good at carrying fungus, (athletes foot ringworm, ect). And the fact that we are always engulfed in millions of various fungi at any instant. She has not studied GD directly, but the family of fungi that it belongs to basically hatches shoots spores into the air.
Last edited by steven.millett on Jun 15, 2012 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby Batgirl » Jun 15, 2012 8:42 pm

Scientifically confirmed? By Who? Please site your reference. If your being serious about this, we all need to know.

If you are siting past studies where healthy bats were put into a cave that was infected and the bats became sick or the lab study where spores were found on caving gear, then that's old news. There are also other studies that show direct contact with infected bats is necessary for transmission and as Luke was saying, what we don't know is the multiplicity of infection (ie how many spores does it take for a bat to develop WNS). And that is the question that needs answering. No one doubts that people could contribute to the spread, but decon protocols have also scientifically been proven effective. Even Peter has said many times that, while possible, it is clearly very difficult for humans to contribute to the spread of WNS.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby steven.millett » Jun 15, 2012 8:53 pm

It was presented last week at the 5th Annual White-Nose Syndrome Symposium.
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby BrianC » Jun 16, 2012 1:03 pm

steven.millett wrote:It was presented last week at the 5th Annual White-Nose Syndrome Symposium.
Was the news invited?
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Re: Another sickening misrepresentation...

Postby LukeM » Jun 16, 2012 1:35 pm

Thanks for the info Steve. I don't think anyone is denying that Gd can be carried on cave gear.

Batgirl, I too thought that research sounded familiar. Turns out Joe Okoniewski presented something very similar sounding at the 2010 WNS Symposium. He detected Gd on previously deconed gear that he took into an infected mine. Peter or anyone else in the loop, was that a flawed study or do Hazel B's recent findings further add to the picture of possible human transport?

For anyone interested, the study by Okoniewski et al. is named Detection of the Conidia of Geomyces destructans in Northeast Hibernacula, at Maternal Colonies, and on Gear – Some Findings Based on Microscopy and Culture. Another thing of note in that study is the high difficulty they had in detecting more than one or two Gd conidia here and there except when directly underneath and close to a hibernating colony of infected bats, as well as their lack of any detection of Gd in the 6 hibernacula sampled outside of the hibernation season. Swabs of the surface of the hibernacula in places where airborne conidia "are likely to be deposited" yielded mostly negative results. Gd was found to not grow on anything except live or recently dead bats and it is rapidly overcome by competing organisms in the cave environment.
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