Do Cavers spread White Nose Syndrome?

[BrianC]

I use real facts~~~~~~~~~~~~~ what I see myself!

And there's the problem. You sit down at your computer and look at the scraps of data that are available on the Internet and decide that whatever you come up with is fact because you gleaned it from actual evidence. Actually, that's not always the case. When bats showed up with GD and WNS further away than we thought bats could migrate someone (either you or tncaver) came up with a convenient theory about counter-rotating storms in the midwest which was promptly touted to be the "facts" necessary to explain any and all discrepancies. (where was this idea before WNS spread so quickly?) No mention that there were no recorded accounts of this happening before except at sea.

Armchair theory to "fact" is a rather large jump don't you think? Or are we just supposed to swallow the idea without too much thought because we need an explanation that exempts cavers so badly? Hell, I could come up with tons of seemingly plausible theories as to how WNS could spread so quickly without humans but I'm not going to put all my chips on one of them!

To quote the first post in this thread:

Speculation must be avoided!

Now, I wouldn't be surprised if you take all this to mean that I think cavers spread WNS and that caves should be closed and so on. That would completely miss the point. I lean much further in the other direction. All I want is discussion about WNS where there's aren't "sides" and enemies, biases and motives, just bats and a disease. The political crap doesn't have a place in answering the original question asked here.

Luke , I think that you have missed my point. I have explained where my facts come from, There are ZERO facts that can provide evidence that cavers do spread WNS, unless of course you would like to provide them and then we could discuss them. The most recent findings (long range spread theory) have stated that ZERO White Nose Syndrome was to be found outside of normal migratory ranges. Spores, certainly will be found everywhere, we agree. But not White Nose Syndrome.

[LukeM]

Luke M,
I still think that high winds that last for days could easily blow an infected bat or two way off course. After all, that is what the scientific investigation by the Center for Disease Control (a scientific organization) concluded with it's translocation research . The winds I specifically mentioned were blowing from the infected areas of the North east to the areas where a couple of solitary infected bats were found in TN. The CDC research stated this is exactly how bats can
be translocated over vast distances in a short period of time. If you haven't read about it, the link is included below.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no1/02-0104.htm

BTW, where do you get all your information? I am guessing that a lot of it comes from reading articles. After all that is one of the accepted means of
communication between scientists. As Bryan stated, some of his data comes from his own observations in the field. I have stated the same thing.
Not only do we read data that is presented by this forum and other locations, we also go out in the field and see for ourselves.

Oh I've definitely read that paper from the CDC. I'd be surprised if anyone who regulars Cavechat hasn't read that. That's why I mentioned in my last post that there were "no recorded accounts of this happening before except at sea." Anyway, we've already had this discussion before if you'll remember. The last time people spoke up about how bats haven't been observed flying in high winds, which would explain why this has only apparently happened when bats were migrating over water. This is a possible downside to your theory that I'm sure I won't see you mentioning anytime soon.

The problem I have is that you mentioned this theory a whole bunch of times here on the forums (and TAG-Net?) and everyone stopped talking about the massive jumps WNS had made. It's almost as if people didn't want to discuss other possibilities; like having a reasonable sounding theory gave them the comfort they needed to move on and forget about the whole thing.

I get my info from the same places you do.

[LukeM]

There are ZERO facts that can provide evidence that cavers do spread WNS, unless of course you would like to provide them and then we could discuss them.

Brian, since you're so stuck on facts and proof I await your final and conclusive proof that infected bats have spread WNS to uninfected colonies in the wild. The clock is ticking. And don't just give me the standard line about migratory paths, or how in lab conditions it has been shown to be possible. The "cavers spread WNS" people will just give you the standard line about how the most visited caves in West Virginia were infected with WNS first or how WNS spread much fast than anyone predicted it would naturally. We don't play that game. I want PROOF damnit!

[BrianC]

There are ZERO facts that can provide evidence that cavers do spread WNS, unless of course you would like to provide them and then we could discuss them.

Brian, since you're so stuck on facts and proof I await your final and conclusive proof that infected bats have spread WNS to uninfected colonies in the wild. The clock is ticking. And don't just give me the standard line about migratory paths, or how in lab conditions it has been shown to be possible. The "cavers spread WNS" people will just give you the standard line about how the most visited caves in West Virginia were infected with WNS first or how WNS spread much fast than anyone predicted it would naturally. We don't play that game. I want PROOF damnit!

Luke, I don't follow you here?

[tncaver]

Oh I've definitely read that paper from the CDC. I'd be surprised if anyone who regulars Cavechat hasn't read that. That's why I mentioned in my last post that there were "no recorded accounts of this happening before except at sea." Anyway, we've already had this discussion before if you'll remember. The last time people spoke up about how bats haven't been observed flying in high winds, which would explain why this has only apparently happened when bats were migrating over water. This is a possible downside to your theory that I'm sure I won't see you mentioning anytime soon.

Keep in mind shortly after the high wind event that only one bat was found in Dunbar Cave and only two were found in an East TN cave. No one saw those
bats flying in the high winds. Easily understandable. One bat in the huge sky, probably at dark. Isn't it quite likely that one infected bat got caught out
at night when the winds unexpectedly blew in and caught the bat off guard? Have you ever been caught off guard when high winds blew in? If not
then you need to spend more time outdoors hiking to caves.

The problem I have is that you mentioned this theory a whole bunch of times here on the forums (and TAG-Net?) and everyone stopped talking about the massive jumps WNS had made. It's almost as if people didn't want to discuss other possibilities; like having a reasonable sounding theory gave them the comfort they needed to move on and forget about the whole thing.
I get my info from the same places you do.

Luke, someone other than me also brought up the simple fact that the so called jumps are easily explained by flying bats and that infections could be spread by bats who intermingle from opposite directions, which would extend any outbreaks beyond the normal flying range of one bat. Basically a bat from the East could fly 200 miles toward the West and a bat from the West could fly 200 miles toward the East and the bat from the East could infect the bat from the West. If the newly infected western bat flew back to where it originated, that would be a jump of 400 miles. Isn't it ironic that only one or two infected
bats were found in the so called jumps.

The bottom line remains the same. If humans were spreading the disease, the disease would have been spread all over the entire country a long time ago.
Cavers travel hundreds of miles in one day to go caving. Not just one caver but hundreds of them on a nice weekend. If humans were spreading the disease
the infections would have shown up all over the country in a very short time. Like one year. It's been over four years now and the disease is still following
migratory bat paths. The science of tracking bats is what makes such knowledge available. The maps showing the migratory bat flights were made possible
by science. It would be beneficial for the USFWS to see all of those maps side by side by year. Then they could plainly see the progression of the disease
along the migratory bat flight routes and that the infections have not only spread along the routes to hibernacula but they have spead very slowly and at
a very steady rate.

Hang in there Luke. We are all in this together.

[John Lovaas]

The problem I have is that you mentioned this theory a whole bunch of times here on the forums (and TAG-Net?) and everyone stopped talking about the massive jumps WNS had made. It's almost as if people didn't want to discuss other possibilities; like having a reasonable sounding theory gave them the comfort they needed to move on and forget about the whole thing.

For the sake of argument, Luke, bat translocation is a 'plausible' explanation for any jumps we've seen in WNS- be it from Europe to Albany's deepwater port, or from eastern Tennessee to western Oklahoma.

Heck, Wisconsin's own bat ecologist said that WNS 'possibly' arrived in the US via an infected bat at the Albany sea port. Many people working in the frontline of WNS research consider bat translocation to be a plausible explanation- and plausible is the word they use.

Anecdotally, I know a caver that (unknowingly) transported a bat this summer from a county in eastern TN- one with WNS affected caves- to the the upper Midwest in their RV; poor little guy got folded up in the pop-up portion of the RV. Luckily for everyone(except the bat, I suppose), the bat was dead on arrival.

After I attended the NSS Convention in Brackettville, TX in 1994, and got to see millions and millions and millions of Mexican free tailed bats, where would you think I next saw one? In a gondola car of steel(from southern AZ) I was unloading, 60 miles northwest of Chicago, Illinois. Needless to say, it was pretty exciting as it flew around the plant before exiting through a bay door.

And for the sake of accuracy, there has really only been one 'jump' of WNS- that being the NY-VA/WV jump. Considering that WNS surveillance and monitoring was in its infancy, translocation is still a plausible explanation for that jump.

Unless hibernacula monitoring is totally ineffective between eastern Tennessee and western Oklahoma, there haven't been any cases of WNS west of eastern Tennessee- yet. This winter will be telling.

As to humans being able to spread the fungus- that hypothesis is getter weaker as time goes on. There is updated and new research(should be out shortly) that shows that in the lab, researchers are unable to infect bats with the fungus via aerosol methods.

That's a really important part of the human-bat WNS vector- 'cavers stirring up cave sediments, dust coming off of cavers' clothing...'

We already know that the fungus does not persist in cave sediments- and by that, I mean hyphae, not spores. So Gd doesn't appear to act like Histoplasma and grow happily in soils and put out lots of spores. Gd puts out spores when it is growing on living dermis.

We can't get Gd to behave like Histoplasma and pump out spores while growing in soils, we can't get bats infected with the fungus via aersol methods- so we decontamintate our gear. I have no problem with that. I've crawled through the feces of a variety of mammals, and waded through knee deep bat guano- so I've always supported gear decon.

As to the bat translocation idea dampening discussion on the topic- well, a quick count of posts and topics here would call that characterization into question. And my post adds one more!

jl

[LukeM]

TN, as far as I'm concerned those are both ideas that deserve serious consideration. I absolutely enjoy the discussion and enjoy the various ideas that have been generated on Cavechat. Like I said, my issue was with the feeling I have that certain cavers were only searching for those ideas so we could stop worrying about it and get on with caving. That issue is exacerbated when BrianC takes these hypotheses and states them as conclusive. I also think people are forced into their extreme positions by the ongoing threat of cave closure and government pressures. Would the rhetoric here be so heated if there was no threat of closures?

I tend to agree with you that WNS would be seen in many other locations if it were easily spread by humans. But, it could be possible to spread, but difficult, or the current area of the United States that has infected bats could encompass the most viable range of climates for the fungus.

[caverdan]

IMO.....the longer it remains just the one bat in Oklahoma....the more likely it blew in and did not receive the spores due the human transmission.

[tncaver]

Unfortunately time will allow the disease to spread.

[wyandottecaver]

eyecave,
I'm done. explaining a problem in english to someone who only understands french is pointless. Our discussion has been the same, and it's just a waste of everyone's time at this point.

BrianC,
You and I have had a similiar conversation as you and Luke. You do indeed tend to develop your "facts" from shaky roots. Your explanation of spores, GD, and the spread of WNS isn't simply unsupported, its actually simply wrong proven from the data we do know. As one example, spores are NOT everywhere. We proved that already with the soil study.

Luke,
Actually besides 1-2 people, I don't think the "perfect storm" theory for spread within the U.S. was much regarded here on CaveChat. What really killed the "WNS Jump" discussions was the BCI banding data and migration maps that showed that while "average" bat ranges did not account for WNS jumps, individual banding cases showed that "some" bats did indeed go that far.

TNcaver,
yes we had this discussion already. Bats caught over large water bodies have no choice but to let the wind carry them. Bats over land...land. More importantly they are sensitive to minute changes in barometric pressure...a single short gust might surprise them...but they know the storm is coming long before it ever gets there.

John,
Are you sure about your aerosol data? Some of the very first lab work showed that infected bats could infect healthy bats without physical contact.(i.e. aerosol) The same for your soil statement. Geomyces genus is primarily a soil fungus I think. Do we have data that shows hyphae don't grow in soil? I thought we had data that it could...?

Caverdan,
the OK bat probably didn't "blow" in from anywhere..see above. However, it also is almost certainly not a case of human transmission. Humans would infect sites, not individual bats. If several bats in that hibernacula were diagnosed at the same time...maybe. But 1 bat, and no subsequent infection....clearly a case of 1 bat flyin solo...for THAT site. Now, that bat obviously got infected somewhere. But was it a long distance migrant? did it get infected from a long distance migrant from somewhere? Or was it at another nearby hibernacula we don't know about that was infected by a caver? We simply can't say.

[John Lovaas]

John,
Are you sure about your aerosol data? Some of the very first lab work showed that infected bats could infect healthy bats without physical contact.(i.e. aerosol) The same for your soil statement. Geomyces genus is primarily a soil fungus I think. Do we have data that shows hyphae don't grow in soil? I thought we had data that it could...?

I learned last January about the successful aerosol transmission experiment from one of the scientists that conducted the research- and it scared me- a fungus that infected mammals without some kind of intermediate transport medium. The same scientist told me two weeks ago that the positive result they had(1 out of 21 bats, as I recall)) was due to a flawed PCR result. That's going to be discussed in the upcoming paper with the more recent attempt to infect via aerosol means. They are working on a different enclosure for conducting the experiment again - to ensure that their current enclosure ventilation didn't act as a kind of filter.

So the short answer is no, there hasn't been success in infecting bats via aerosol means in the lab yet- but they're working on it...

As of late October, no one had successfully inoculated cave sediments with Gd- but I believe that's one experiment Hazel Barton got funding for this fall. All of the abstracts I've read show that you'll get positive PCR results from wherever infected bats were- specifically, where they were roosting, or directly underneath their roosts. So there are spores(and possibly hyphal fragments) where they were clinging, and there were spores(ditto on hyphae) where they fell.

But I'm not aware of any evidence of persistence or growth in cave sediments.

If you can guide me to some research where folks have observed Gd mycelia(and specifically conidiophores) in cave sediments, I would greatly appreciate it! It would certainly shift my opinion about the human-bat WNS vector.

If we were involved in a criminal trial(and with Gd classified as an invasive in Wisconsin, that is unlikely, but theoretically possible) I think we would need to demonstrate that the spores from our clothing can reach bats in quantities sufficient to infect them, or else inoculate cave sediments that are favorable for hyphal growth and the formation of conidiophores that will send enough spores into the cave atmosphere to infect the bats.

[tncaver]

TNcaver,
yes we had this discussion already. Bats caught over large water bodies have no choice but to let the wind carry them. Bats over land...land. More importantly they are sensitive to minute changes in barometric pressure...a single short gust might surprise them...but they know the storm is coming long before it ever gets there.

The translocation of bats explanation still holds water regardless of which form it manifests itself (wind, plane, train, shipping container, bus, car, truck, boat, etc.). As does bat flights over longer distances than previously thought. A bat flying 200 miles in one direction meeting up with a bat flying 200 miles from
another direction, and flying back, still equals 400 miles the infection can spread in one season even without involving translocation.

[wyandottecaver]

TN,
I wont argue that translocation by plane/train/car is plausible, as is interaction between wide ranging bats. It was the counter-rotating wind/big storm theory I had issue with.

John,
interesting. If we truly can't get mycelia growth in soil then the human-vector issue is solved. Aerosol spread would be important only bat-bat. Humans would remain a possible but insignificant vector in all cases. It would require (at least) a caver borne or deposited spore/s to come in direct contact with a bat. A possible but incredibly unlikely event.

[John Lovaas]

John,
interesting. If we truly can't get mycelia growth in soil then the human-vector issue is solved. Aerosol spread would be important only bat-bat. Humans would remain a possible but insignificant vector in all cases. It would require (at least) a caver borne or deposited spore/s to come in direct contact with a bat. A possible but incredibly unlikely event.

Ah- but will researchers be able to take cave sediments into the lab and find one that serves as a perfect media for Gd growth- and even getting the fungus to produce conidiophores? Possibly.

And bat biologists could run with that result as more 'evidence' of a human-bat vector.

You do nail the crux of my view of the human-bat vector hypothesis-

human have to deliver spores(or-what the hell- viable hyphal fragments) to the bats, or

humans have to inoculate cave sediments(via spores or hyphae) and a mycelium develops that A) develops conidiophores that deliver spores to the bats or B) crawls up the cave walls to reach the bats.

[BrianC]

John,
interesting. If we truly can't get mycelia growth in soil then the human-vector issue is solved. Aerosol spread would be important only bat-bat. Humans would remain a possible but insignificant vector in all cases. It would require (at least) a caver borne or deposited spore/s to come in direct contact with a bat. A possible but incredibly unlikely event.

Good Luck!