Deep in a cool, damp cave in Vermont, tens of thousands of furry, chocolate brown creatures stir.
The little brown bats, survivors of a deadly fungus that decimated their population, went into hibernation last fall. Now in early May, they're waking, detaching from their rock wall roosts and making their first tentative flights in search of the moths, beetles and flyingIt's here, in deep passages that creep into a Vermont mountain, where scientists found one of the first North American outbreaks of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome.
It will take time. Little brown bat females birth only one pup a year. And while they can live into their teens or 20s, only 60% to 70% of pups make it beyond their first 12 months, Bennett said. The fungus that causes white nose syndrome is believed to have been brought to North America from Europe, where bats are apparently accustomed to it. Named for the white, fuzzy spots it produces on noses and other bat body parts, the fungus has killed 90% or more of the bat populations in parts of North America.found that 81 of the 154 known bat species in the United States, Canada and Mexico are at severe risk from white nose infection, climate change and habitat loss.
"There's something special about those bats," Bennett said of Dorset's little browns."We can't tell exactly what that is, but we have "I'm feeling pretty comfortable," Turner said."We're not going to be stuck staring down the barrel of extinction." "By selecting colder temperatures, they're helping themselves in two ways, they're helping themselves preserve fat and preserve their energy and they're also getting less disease," Turner said.
Laura Kloepper, right, a visiting assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Center for Acoustics Research and Behavior Lab, carries out research with unidentified students in a bat cave in Dorset, Vt., on May 2, 2023. Scientists studying bat species hit hard by the fungus that causes white nose syndrome, which has killed millions of bats across North America, say there is a glimmer of good news for the disease.
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