Discussion of destroying WNS populations

[hewhocaves]

The PA Commission also has the infamous bare handed WNS bat guy.
However,we are talking (in this thread) about killing captive held bats not all bats. It is further a different case when talking about diseases in general and specific highly virulent diseases. Thus, there have in fact been some "population culling" cases in areas with high incidences of rabies, generally targeting racoons, coyotes, and rarely foxes, but we generally don't put down free roaming wildlife because they might have diabetes. It is also a stretch to say all bats or anything else will get a disease thus kill them all...

Wy...
Bare-handed bat guy... exactly.

Yes, it would make some sense if we knew (a) exactly how far it had spread. (b) whether it will crop up after the cullings and (c) we could be certain it would eradicate 100% of the syndrome. Of course, we're 0 for 3 on that. So culling and this is an apples / oranges comparison. Furthermore, they can't possibly keep the state WNS-free without a very very tall wall.

Why do I feel that the final solution from Pennsylvania's point of view would be to attach car batteries to the nice, metal bat gates and zap the little buggers as they go in and out.

[cavergirl]

cavergirl, ... So, tell us, are you in favor of killing off endangered bats? Seems like that would
be a major 180 for you. Please be clear on your stance.

I think the PA game commission is way out of line here. But it is typical of a lot of agencies responses- to take an all or nothing view: either we save ALL the bats or we kill ALL the bats. Makes no logical sense. They claim there is no test, but confirmation of WNS affected sites has been by testing for the geomyces sp. fungus, so there is a test of sorts.

I think injured bats that show no signs of fungus (or fungus specific lesions and/or scars on wing membranes) and appear to be otherwise healthy should be kept and rehabilitated and eventually released. Especially if they are non hibernating species (so called tree bats). After all, we are going to need all the bats we can get to keep the insects in check. But if the bats do show evidence of WNS infection they should definitely NOT be released. Keeping them alive to study them however would be a better idea than simply killing them. One thing I am curious about is whether bats that recover from WNS have antibodies against the fungus that would protect them from being reinfected. (like getting chicken pox as a child, you won’t get it again. of course, that is a virus not a fungus). If we simply kill all the bats, we will never know. I certainly do not recommend releasing any bats that show signs of WNS infection. especially if they are endangered species. the risk of them spreading it is way too great.

[tncaver]

Bravo cavergirl. I wish our government agencies had your common sense approach.

[PYoungbaer]

With all the questions people have been raising, I decided to contact Lisa Williams of the PA Game Commission directly. She is quoted in the Inquirer story. Turns out there is a little more to the story (what a surprise). The PGC order relating to rehabilitators and WNS was issued back in February. One might ask why this is becoming a news story now. That, we don't know.

The PGC is not asking rehabilitators to kill any bats that they had prior to the order. They can continue to nurse them, but not release them. The euthanization order pertains to bats that have been or are dropped off at rehabilitators by the public.

As far as a WNS diagnostic goes, just because there aren't visible signs of the fungus (which disappears quickly outside of mines and caves), or wing damage, doesn't mean there isn't subcutaneous damage indicative of WNS. It's just that it's not visible to the naked eye. It's these sorts of bats that PGC asks not be released to potentially spread more WNS.

Regarding cavergirl's question about whether or not surviving bats are resistant, that's a key scientific priority as discussed the week before last in Austin, Texas, at the strategy conference hosted by Bat Conservation International and Dr. Tom Kunz. I know the proceeds of that conference are being prepared and we will post them as soon as they are publicly available.

[MapGirl]

I'm a little bit confused about targeting rehabilitators' bats as a method of culling. Bats with obvious WNS aside, why would a bat dropped off at a clinic with, say, a broken wing, have a higher chance of carrying WNS invisibly than a bat plucked randomly out of the sky by a bat net? Is the theory that WNS weakens bats so that they are more likely to succumb to something else in nature and fall into a rehabilitator's hands? Or is the theory that the rehabilitation clinics themselves might become WNS transmission zones, with WNS bats brought in by the public infecting the healthy bats (well, healthy despite whatever else led them to get brought into a rehab clinic)? If it's the latter case, then it seems like it would be a better rule to order clinics not to take any bats in in the first place, and to say the same to the public (I, at least, call a wildlife place before showing up at their door with an animal). If it's the former, then it seems like kind of a gross method of isolating WNS bats from the wild population. Is there another reason for this legislation that I'm not seeing, or is this a strategy without much logic behind it?

I really do hear the argument about not rehabilitating wildlife - or at least, not rehabilitating wildlife very often. Perhaps it would be best if we didn't mess with wildlife very much at all, actually. Of course, that refers to culling as much as it does to rehabilitation. One approach - a fantasy in real life, I'm sure - would be for us to take an ecological assessment of bats' various needs, and try to retract our influence as much as possible from every aspect of bats' support systems. Whether they have a direct impact on WNS or not. Surely, if you're a population battling an epidemic, it helps if you have the widest possible choice of habitat and the best possible nutrition while you do so. And then we'd do nothing else, unless we somehow discover a miracle cure. Total fantasy.

[Chads93GT]

Why destroy entire populations....................why not let nature run its course.........

Just my opinion.

[wyandottecaver]

At this point we probably simply have no other option but to let nature run it's course. Though we might still be able to slow WNS down that way. The fundamental question is that if implemented soon enough, we would be destroying populations but (hopefully) saving species by limiting the range and/or speed of WNS.

Will there be any little brown bats at all in VT in 10 years? In the midwest in 15? and that is for the most common species in the NE. For species already at risk...It is quite possible there won't be any Indiana Bats in the NE in 2-3 yrs.

Now that we KNOW how deadly WNS is, we KNOW how fast it spreads, we pretty strongly suspect there is no immunity at work (no evidence at all in vulnerable species yet) then the idea of destroying colonies at "new" WNS sites in currently WNS free states is at least is more defensible as a mainstream approach. If your IN,TN, or KY, with millions of at risk bats you really have to wonder if destroying those first few sites isn't worth trying.

[tncaver]

If your IN,TN, or KY, with millions of at risk bats you really have to wonder if destroying those first few sites isn't worth trying.

I am glad you don't live in my state and I hope you stay in yours.

[wyandottecaver]

*shrug* lets take the first 2 WNS sites (hasn't yet happened) in TN. In 2-3 years all those bats will be dead if we don't do anything at all AND they will have spread WNS to many others before they die. If we kill them in year 1 we haven't affected the outcome for those first individuals at all except in timing, but we HAVE slowed/stopped their ability to kill other bats.

Even if killing those 1st 2 colonies doesn't work...all we did was kill those bats faster than WNS would have anyway.

[tncaver]

*shrug* lets take the first 2 WNS sites (hasn't yet happened) in TN. In 2-3 years all those bats will be dead if we don't do anything at all AND they will have spread WNS to many others before they die. If we kill them in year 1 we haven't affected the outcome for those first individuals at all except in timing, but we HAVE slowed/stopped their ability to kill other bats.

If Mother Nature is allowed to rule, those bats may or might not live for several years. But if wyandottecaver takes over,
they will be dead within one year. There is also the chance that bats in our area may survive untouched. Killing them off
will TOTALLY eliminate the chance that bats might survive. Geez man, this might have been done when there was
just ONE or two sites affected, but it's way past that now. I don't know why you persist in killing them all off. There is no
way you can be sure you are killing off the MOST of the infected bats. You might be killing off the ones that are LEAST infected.

[wyandottecaver]

well lets make sure we are talking about the same thing. I am using "colony" to describe all the bats in any single cave, mine, or other specific location. In many ways, especially for diseases, these colonies act as a single organisim. I am only advocating killing bats that are in a colony that has been confirmed with WNS. thus if cave "x" gets WNS I would advocate killing all the bats we could in cave "x" (probably by direct killing and then closing the entrance/s with wire.) I am not saying we should say, kill all the bats in TN so WNS can't get to IN.

I would be equally supportive of a physical quarantine (to the extent we could) of those caves, but I doubt we simply have the ability to successfully support that many bats once we sealed them in and I'm not sure simply killing them wouldn't be more humane in the long run.

If you find a individual rabid dog/raccoon, etc you kill it. You kill it because it poses a threat of spreading the disease and because once expressed it isn't generally curable... why should individual bat colonies be different?

That rabid dog *might* be resistant and eventually recover...the odds are almost zero. but if you let it go you risk infecting other animaals, maybe your kids....in this case our kids aren't at risk...but every healthy bat between Tennessee and Texas is.

[tncaver]

If you find a individual rabid dog/raccoon, etc you kill it. You kill it because it poses a threat of spreading the disease and because once expressed it isn't generally curable... why should individual bat colonies be different?

Because the dog/raccoon is right there and you know it is infected and it is in the vicinity of your home/area.

[/quote]That rabid dog *might* be resistant and eventually recover...the odds are almost zero. but if you let it go you risk infecting other animaals, maybe your kids....in this case our kids aren't at risk...but every healthy bat between Tennessee and Texas is.[/quote]

So you say. Every healthy bat between Tennessee and Texas. NOT.... Every bat species isn't being affected. Also, there is no
proof that WNS has spread that far South. Even if it does, why kill the bats if they are going to die anyway. You might
miss ONE or 100 or 10,000 in a hibernaculum you don't know about, and IF they are going to spread it everywhere, they still will. Live and let live. Let nature take its course.


wyandottecaver, why don't you round up ALL the redneck bat killers and let them loose in all the big hibernaculums. Then
they can do what those gates have been preventing them from all along. Then you can yank down all those gates. They won't be needed any more. Were they ever? wyandottecaver, you are so anxious to kill endangered species. If I had killed just one endangered bat last year or this year, and a park ranger or USFWS employee saw me do it, I would be in jail. But if you kill thousands you will be a hero right? This is one F_ _ _ _D up country. My opinion of organized cavers/NSS/biologists, continues to decline.

[ek]

Hold on now, wyandottecaver. Your analogy to killing a rabid dog doesn't seem to fit. In fact, this appears to be the least well constructed and least compelling argument you've made so far. Without intending offense, the inadequacy of this analogy actually makes me consider the position that bat colonies should be exterminated to be a less credible position. Because WNS-infected bat colonies are so obviously not like rabid dogs.

First of all, I'm not convinced that you are using the term "colony" correctly. Are two separate groups of bats, of possibly different species, in the same cave but separated by many miles, the same colony? What if they're separated by many miles and several sumps?

What about two caves that are near one another, such that there is only a short distance between the bats in one cave and those in another? Would those be separate colonies? What if the entrances are only three feet apart? What if the two caves used to be one cave, but now it's impossible to get from one to the other because the connection has been closed off permanently by human quarrying operations? (We have a that situation up here in the northeast--Howe Caverns and Barytes).

Second of all, you seem to be saying that because a colony is like an organism in some ways, and that this is especially often so with respect to diseases, that a colony can be considered a single organism without further consideration, i.e. that because a colony has many of the same properties as an organism, that it has all the same properties. But this is patently false--if there are some resistant bats, and WNS kills most but not all of the colony, then those bats were substantially different from the rest of the colony. If there are some bats that are not resistant but recover, and those recovering bats comprise a substantial percentage of their species in their area (or perhaps of their species in a wide geographic area), then, again, this is a way that the colony is not like a single organism. You are categorically and, it seems, uncritically ignoring all the possible benefits of allowing some bats to live, and having implicitly concluded that there is no realizable benefit of allowing some to live, you then, in your first logically valid rhetorical step, conclude that all should die. Well, I don't buy it. If you want to make your point effectively, you're going to have to address these fine (but supremely important) distinctions.

Now let's move on to the dog example. Suppose that dogs are extremely important to our ecosystem, and that humans will suffer terribly if they go extinct. Now suppose that they're all rabid, or that there is evidence that there's no way that we can prevent them all from being rabid. This is a very sad situation with not a large chance of a highly positive outcome. But in this situation it is not at all clear that all rabid dogs should be killed...especially if we add to this situation that all humans, as well as all other non-dog organisms, are almost certainly immune to rabies. If you have a species that is being existentially threatened, or whose existence in a significant geographic area is being threatened, then suddenly it is much more problematic to kill off hundreds of thousands of its members.

Finally, the odds of a rabid dog recovering are almost zero, and we know this to be the case. If you consider a hibernaculum as an organism, then in one year, the odds of the hibernaculum surviving in the limited sense of one or more of its individual constituent bats surviving is actually quite good. The odds of it surviving through an extended multi-year period are incalculable for lack of data.

tncaver, clearly most organized bat biologists do not agree with wyandottecaver, or wildlife agencies would have already started systematically killing off bats in large numbers in an attempt to curtail or contain WNS. That you disagree with one biologist shouldn't say anything about the rest of them, much less of all cavers or of the NSS. Furthermore, wyandottecaver is not killing thousands of bats--he is arguing that a policy should be implemented to do it. You could argue that that's as bad, but it's not the same thing. If you glorified killing one bat, but did not actually do so, then you would not go to jail. Finally, it is a mistake to assume that the two options are to kill off bats intentionally, or to stand on the sidelines and do nothing. Scientists are working to develop a strategy to save bats, even though they generally reject wyandottecaver's exterminationist views. Let's keep supporting their work by volunteering where possible and by donating money, so that we can maximize the chances of curing or (more likely) mitigating WNS.

[tncaver]

Furthermore, wyandottecaver is not killing thousands of bats--he is arguing that a policy should be implemented to do it. Scientists are working to develop a strategy to save bats, even though they generally reject wyandottecaver's exterminationist views. Let's keep supporting their work by volunteering where possible and by donating money, so that we can maximize the chances of curing or (more likely) mitigating WNS.

Good!

[wyandottecaver]

TNcaver
first...if we find an infected colony..it is right there, we know it is infected, and it poses a risk to those local bats. same concept as the dog. second...we don't know of any species not affected. We know some are, we don't have enough information to say about others like tree dwelling bats, but ALL of them might be. third....I explicitly said WNS had not been seen in TN but used it as an example, how far WNS can and will go is speculation..but if we find an infected colony then we KNOW it goes that far. Fourth....if we miss 1 bat or 10,000 and they still spread it what have we lost? but however many bats we do get are that many fewer potential bats to spread WNS. If we see that killing colonies doesn't work after the first few then we can stop...or we might find it very effective..... fifth, If I wanted redneck batkillers I wouldn't wait for WNS, and whether you agree it is a correct approach or not, killing certain individuals with the purpose of helping the species is not the same as wanting to destroy the species. I do happen to agree with you about cave gates.


EK,
you are correct in that I used a simplified case for "colony". I was trying to make a brief uncomplicated description of the concept. Certainly cases exist where there are multiple distinct groups of bats in a single cave that most likely do not interact between each other during the winter which is when we would logically be identifying and acting on WNS infection site data. Also there are cases where proximity of the entrances means that 2 or more caves may functionally act as a single hibernacula. Species is less important so long as we are talking about those species currently known to be at risk. So a group of bats that occupy the same functional hibernacula is probably a more accurate starting point.

If the colony acts as a single entity for WNS purposes then we should deal with it that way. I agree that *if* there were bats that reacted functionally different to WNS than the others in the colony your argument would be correct. The question of immunity is of course *the* question. After roughly 3 years and 9 states and about 1 million bats we have zero evidence...even circumstantial...of immunity in the main affected species. none. There is a gray area concerning big browns (not generally cave dwellers anyway) Virginia Big-Eared and small footed bats (limited distribution) and we can deal with caves that contain significant groups of those species case by case. But your question of benefit in letting bats in a WNS colony live (however long WNS lets them) is essentially limited to the bugs they would eat in that time balanced against spreading WNS.

That brings us to dogs. Wolves/coyotes/foxes/etc are important to many ecosystems and those ecosystems can be thrown out of balance including affecting human populations when they are removed. Some ecosystems have indeed in many cases seen the wholesale removal of canine predators and in most cases have re-balanced themselves. They don't look or work like they did but they didn't implode long term either. I actually think bats will operate in a similiar fashion. Other things eat bugs, bugs are eventually self limiting by resources like anything else, etc. There will be a unstable reshuffling period and then the new balance will assert itself. There will be winners and losers and we might not like the new NE as much as the old...but I doubt a naturalist from 1700's would think much of our ecosystem either.

In your example, you say there is no clear motive for mass killing rabid dogs when dogs as a species have a grim outlook and they didn't pose a direct threat to humans. My argument is that if they are likely to die anyway (infected colonies not all bats everywhere) where is the motive for NOT killing them? But you again tie the fates of individuals to the species. If killing 10,000 or 100,000 dogs meant you had a chance to delay the extinction of dogs or gain time to find a cure then shouldn't you?

A rabid dog will sicken and die in less than 1 year. We have data to show most WNS caves so far are down to less than 10% by year 3 and the case can be made that those are likely just new bats to that cave. In this case the time frame for bat census counts isn't really important. What is important is do any of those original colony members live? How long? we don't know for sure. We know about 90% for sure don't....is a 90% dead dog still a dog functionally?

Don't mistake inaction for disagreement with the principle. Agencies are predisposed to inaction especially for things that require quick action. Certainly actually killing colonies is controversial. Mostly based on the politics of fuzzy critter PR, or not being sure of getting ALL of them, or on the off and unproven chance that resistance exists. But killing infected "groups" to control disease is widely accepted and widely practiced. Especially if people are at risk. The only reason we aren't already killing infected and healthy colonies alike is that extinction of bats is less serious than limited human deaths to the folks in charge. We still have places where bat colonies have been destroyed by the Health Department when 1 bat is found with rabies....

I agree there are more options than doing nothing and killing bats. We can poke, prod, examine, and squint through microscopes. I think there is only 1 option that has any hope of making any difference on the ground based on what we currently know.