A Future for Bats

So yesterday I had a post about Mammoth Cave National Park and I focused primarily on the geology of the park as I have with most of my National Park posts. Well shortly after I posted it I read a post over at Darren Naish's wonderful blog Tetrapod Zoology in his 20 part (holy crap 20) series on vesper bats, the link to the post will include links to the other 19 if you want. This was the last post in series and it is about the potential future for vesper bats and it included a pretty good summary of all of the troubles that the vesper bats are currently facing. This post won't focus on vesper bats in particular but bats in the more general sense

Now to tie the previous paragraph together. When I visited Mammoth Cave much of the discussion by the tour guides was not about the geologic history, although there was plenty of that, it was about the animals that live in the caves especially the bats. Bats seem to have some hold on people that seems to interest them greatly. They discussed two of the problems that Darren talks about in his post and how the National Park Service is trying to prevent the loss of bats. I will follow the two of them in the same order that Darren did and for simplicities sake I will be using the same section titles.

Disturbance and roost destruction
Many bats hibernate for the winter in caves and in hollow trees among other similar things. One of the things that can cause them not to come back or to leave their hibernation place too early is being disturbed while they hibernating. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS homepage) had this to say on the Indiana Bat, Myotis sodalis.

Indiana bats, because they hibernate in large numbers in only a few caves, are extremely vulnerable to disturbance. During hibernation, they cluster in groups of up to 500 per square foot. Since the largest hibernation caves support from 20,000 to 50,000 bats, it is easy to see how a large part of the total population can be affected by a single event. Episodes of large numbers of Indiana bat deaths have occurred due to human disturbance during hibernation.

It is obviously one thing to admit you have a problem and something else completely to do something about it. Well while at the park I was told that many of the other entrances, even the ones outside of the park, had gates put on them that would allow bats and other animals in and out but not allow humans in. The FWS page said this:

Public lands like National Wildlife Refuges, military areas, and U.S. Forest Service lands are managed for Indiana bats by protecting forests. This means ensuring that there are the size and species of trees needed by Indiana bats for roosting; and providing a supply of dead and dying trees that can be used as roost sites. In addition, caves used for hibernation are managed to maintain suitable conditions for hibernation and eliminate disturbance.

The National Park Service itself also talks about protection of the bats on page 12 of this report on the biological assessment for fiscal year 2007 prescribed fire plan says this:

There is a preference for standing dead trees and species that have loose bark, but Indiana bats may roost in any tree greater than six inches in diameter (they have occasionally been seen in smaller trees). The cave hibernacula are gated to prevent human disturbance during hibernation

Also in the report they mention not cutting down dead hollowed out trees and just trimming off some of the lower branches to keep the fire from spreading up the tree.

White-nose syndrome
While the previous section focused primarily on the Indiana bat this section applies more to bats in general. White nose syndrome (WNS) is a deadly disease that is described very well on Darren's post, but I have included the Wikipedia link just in case. WNS is devastating to bat populations and as such the NPS is greatly concerned with it hitting the bat populations within the park on a webpage with a lot of information on WNS:

The potential exists for the loss of hundreds of thousands more bats—and perhaps entire species—bad news for us as bats devour millions of insect pests and play a role in pollination.

The park, however, is being proactive and on that website they talk about what you should try to do to avoid spreading it. They also include a little check list explaining what you should try to avoid, as well as a small application that allows for a quick, you are good to go or you should see us about this. There were plenty of signs all over the visitors center about the harm white nose syndrome can do and a booth to go visit if you may have come in contact with it. They even have a plan in case your tour group happens across a potential exposure to WNS.

On the remote chance that you might come into contact with Geomyces destructans spores during your tour of Mammoth Cave, all participants in Mammoth Cave National Park cave tours will be required to walk on bio security mats after exiting the Cave. This will require each individual in your party to walk the length of a nylon mat saturated in a Lysol™ solution comparable to that used in home cleaning. Specific information on the active ingredients of Lysol IC™ and the concentration being used are available at the White-Nose Station at the Visitor Center. We also ask for your cooperation by washing your hands and changing clothes and footwear before visiting any other caves or mines.

I hope that between the efforts of the NPS in parks such as Mammoth Cave National Park and the efforts of the PWS throughout the United States could slow the spread of WNS and prevent many deaths from people disturbing colonies as possible.