Wildlife Management
Bat-Killing Disease Spreading, Closing Western Caves
Feds taking precautions to curb the spread of White-nose Syndrome by asking cavers to cooperate and self-police.By Alex Strickland, 9-09-10
 | |
|
A strange bat-killing disease discovered in a New York cave in 2006 hasn't conclusively reached the bats of the West yet, but federal agencies are taking no chances. They're simply closing the caves.
Effective July 27, the U.S. Forest Service issued an emergency closure of all caves and abandoned mines for one year in the area it defines as the Rocky Mountain Region, which includes Colorado and Wyoming, as well as South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.
The disease, White-nose Syndrome or WNS, remains mysterious. Experts aren't sure exactly how it's spread but know that it's linked to the death of more than a million hibernating bats in several states and Canada. It's possible that the fungus that causes the disease can be transported on clothing and caving equipment.
Since gating caves in all states that have them isn't feasible, officials are asking state officials to set policy and asking cavers to self-police. In August, the Bureau of Land Management sent out a memorandum to state land managers across the country explaining the directive and asking for cooperation.
Western Reaction
Here's a quick rundown of where to expect closures:
- U.S. Forest Service: The USFS has enacted blanket closures for all caves and abandoned mines in Colorado and Wyoming. The closure began in July and will remain in effect for one year. Officials for USFS regional offices that cover Utah, Idaho and Montana say no closures are currently in affect, but they are monitoring the situation.
- Bureau of Land Management: State BLM land managers have been instructed to examine WNS and create management plans to deal with the disease's spread. No closures have been announced yet, but are likely to vary from state to state across the West.
- National Park Service: At this time, all NPS-overseen caves in the Western US remain unaffected by WNS-induced closures.
- State agencies: At this time, no state agencies in Western states have enacted restrictions based on the spread of WNS.
- Because the spread of WNS has happened quickly and sporadically, the status of cave closures is in flux. Depending on your location, contact local agencies or caving organizations for the latest updates. A comprehensive list of closures is maintained by the National Speleological Society.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is acting as the lead organization on WNS research and decision-making. Congress is in the mix, too, after appropriating $1.9 million to the FWS for research on how to combat the disease.
The widespread closure in the West has prompted both support and criticism among cavers. Bat Conservation International, the country's leading bat organization, supported the move and took some heat.
In response, BCI's executive director, Nina Fascione, released a statement which said in part: "BCI is still promoting targeted cave closures rather than blanket closures as a general policy…but we also accept the reality that agencies must sometimes make management decisions for resources, even though their data are incomplete. In such cases, an abundance of caution can be justified when the stakes are as high as they are with White-nose Syndrome."
Ann Froschauer, one of three people with the FWS tasked with overseeing the coordination effort from New York, said, "There is a concerted inter-agency effort with federal and state agencies and some partners – like the National Speleological Society and their members – to try to figure out what the best ways to go about this are.
"It's very exciting to see everyone coming together on this," she said, "but does that mean everyone will be happy with the decisions made? No, definitely not."
Froschauer, herself a caver, said the spread of WNS has severely impacted her pursuing that activity as caves were either closed off or she chose to adhere to the voluntary moratorium the agency placed on caving across the Eastern U.S.
"It's a tough issue for a lot of people who love caving," Froschauer says. "They want to do the right thing, but sometimes the right thing is not getting to do something they love."
Local cavers are holding out hope that action taken elsewhere combined with the geography and climate of the West might be enough to prevent such action from being taken on the far side of the Rockies.
In Utah, home of a significant canyoneering community, the policies won't affect slot canyons. Bats don't typically hibernate there.
However, "we're very concerned in seeing that it does not spread to Utah," says BLM spokesman Mitch Snow.
WNS seems to mainly affect bats during their hibernation period in cold, wet, humid caves. Since most Utah BLM caves are at lower, warmer elevations and usually have a drier atmosphere, they don't present the conditions where the WNS fungus would thrive, according to Dale Green, a spokesman for the Salt Lake Grotto of the National Speleological Society.
"The possibility of WNS appearing in Utah caves on lands administered by the BLM is very remote," he says, though he did acknowledge that some caves on Forest Service land might present more hospitable conditions for the fungus.
Forest Service Region 4 spokeswoman Loyal Clark said no closures have been discussed on Utah forest lands, but said the agency was closely monitoring the fungus' spread westward.
"If it gets close, we'll re-evaluate," Clark said.
Regardless, the FWS along with the National Speleological Society – with more than 200 chapters around the country – have suggested that cavers follow a set of decontamination guidelines that require extensive cleaning of all clothing and equipment between outings or even the use of disposable hazmat-type Tyvek suits to prevent the fungus' spread.
Froschauer acknowledges that the decontamination guidelines can be obnoxious, but the potential benefits outweigh the inconveniences.
"I was one of those folks that was grumbling as I spend an hour cleaning my cave gear," she says. "But the grumbling was more because I wanted to go eat Mexican food, rather than because it was so difficult or time-consuming to clean gear."
But clean gear and closed caves might not be enough to stop the disease's spread. While science hasn't definitively answered whether WNS is spread from humans to bats, there's indisputable evidence that it's spread bat to bat. And since many bats migrate to more hospitable climes in the winter months, they may spread it among themselves no matter how many precautions management agencies take.
"We know light years more about White Nose Syndrome than we did even a year ago," says Bat Conservation International's Fascione. "Scientific evidence suggests that keeping people away will help, but no one knows for sure."
Fascione is quick to evangelize the many underappreciated roles bats play in our economics and ecosystems, from pollination to pest control. But when it comes to WNS she acknowledges that regardless of how many steps are taken, in the end everyone just has to wait and see.
"This was just discovered in 2006 and it took a while for everyone to figure out what was going on, but there's been a great amount of collaboration since then," she said. "We've just never seen anything like it."
Fascione said some scientific models predict total extinction of some bat species, including the potential loss of the common Little Brown Bat that flutters through night skies around the country.
There is, however, "a glimmer of hope," she said. The fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome here is also found in European caves, where bats are unaffected by it. One theory is that bats in the Old World were once pushed to the brink by WNS or by one of its ancestors, but populations hung on just enough to recover with a built-in immunity.
"Nature has a way of being resilient," Fascione says. "But we absolutely can't sit still. If we don't do anything, we may lose our bats, and if we do take action we may lose our bats. But we can't not try."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment