As white-nose syndrome continues to spread, new conversations about how to protect bats are underway.

The efforts largely involve educating the public on the benefits and risks associated with having bats around – it’s difficult to convince people to leave them be if those same people are worried about rabies.

That’s why Heidi Kretser, the livelihood and conservation coordinator with the Saranac Lake chapter of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Adirondack Program, sought perspective on the public’s perception of bats. She launched a study, with help from adjunct faculty at Cornell University, which examined public information about bats.

The research specifically targeted press releases from wildlife and public health agencies in eight states from 2006 to 2013, and some mixed messages were uncovered.

“Either it’s rabies and bats are bad, or it’s white-nose syndrome and bats are good,” Kretser said. “They’re not necessarily mixed together or presented in a way that’s easily accessible.”

Kretser sits on the White-nose Syndrome National Communications Working Group and said she hopes to use the study’s findings to develop consistent messaging about bats. Part of the problem, she said, is that the animals weren’t heavily studied in the Northeast until white-nose syndrome was discovered in a cave in Schoharie County in 2006.

Suddenly, state Department of Environmental Conservation officials were talking about bat conservation, but, as Kretser noted during a talk she gave in October at the Bronx Zoo during National Bat Week, a public image of bats that made protecting the creatures seem counterintuitive might already exist.

“Might” is the key word Kretser was concerned with. Unlike other species, like wolves, coyotes, bears and deer, there was no previous research to indicate what people think when they see a bat’s erratic movements silhouetted against the evening sky.

“Do they even register the bats-rabies connection, or do they register bats and vampires?” Kretser asked. “We don’t know any of these things, so what needs to happen is to find out via research what people know about bats, what they know about white-nose syndrome, what they think about rabies and what types of different messages might change their attitudes or change what they would change to their property in terms of bat conservation actions.”

—

Bats under attack

Bat conservation efforts are a response to white-nose syndrome, a disease that affects hibernating bats and is caused by a tell-tale fungus that appears on the muzzles of the animals. Since 2006, it has been found in 25 states and five Canadian provinces.

“From the time it was discovered until now, they estimate six million bats have died,” Kretser said. “That’s incredibly fast.”

To put that in perspective, six million is almost 10 times the human population of Vermont.

The fungus, called pseudogymnoascus destructans, eats holes in a bat’s wings. The disturbance causes the bat to come out of hibernation early to seek extra energy for combating the disease.

Since their food sources aren’t available in the winter or spring, afflicted bats often succumb to the weather.

In an email to the Enterprise, Carl Herzog, a wildlife biologist with the DEC, said there are nine bat species in the Adirondacks. Three fly south for the winter and are not thought to be affected by the disease.

The impact of the disease on the six species that winter here is varied. One of the region’s most common species, the big brown bat, seems to be unaffected, while the once-common northern long-eared bat has experienced a 98 percent population decline.

“Two species seem to have avoided serious decline,” Herzog wrote. “We have some evidence that little brown bats may be stabilizing at about 10 percent of their former abundance, although we have not yet seen a clear recovery. Indiana bats have declined steadily at almost every hibernation site since arrival of the disease. We encounter tri-colored and northern long-eared bats so infrequently that it is difficult to assess a current trend.”

—

The truth about rabies

Rabies is a viral disease that is uncommon but fatal. It infects the central nervous system and ultimately affects the brain. Early symptoms in humans are fever, headache and general weakness.

More specific symptoms appear as rabies progresses. Those can include insomnia, anxiety, hallucinations, increase in saliva, difficulty swallowing and fear of water. Death usually occurs within days of these symptoms appearing.

Kretser said her research is about more than marrying public information concerning conservation and rabies. It’s also about getting the correct information about those things to the public.

“About 1 percent of bats are carriers of rabies,” Kretser said. “It’s a very small risk, relatively speaking, and we don’t know how that risk compares to, say, the risk of disease that might result from bats not doing their job in the ecosystem, which is being predators for all of the bugs, which can transmit other kinds of diseases.”

Kretser noted that other species, like dogs, fox, cats, coyotes and skunks, can get rabies. Herzog said that’s true, but it’s impossible to compare the occurrence of rabies on a species-to-species basis because of the way different animals are tested and collected.

“Animals that are submitted to the State Rabies Lab (run by NYS Department of Health) include a disproportionately high number of animals that are behaving abnormally, so apparent rabies prevalence is undoubtedly higher in the tested sample than for the population as a whole,” Herzog wrote. “That said, more raccoons test positive for rabies each year than bats, and the apparent percentage of infected animals is typically higher for raccoons, skunks and foxes.”

The only way to tell if a bat is rabid is to have it tested in a laboratory, and since they aren’t easy to catch that can be difficult. Unusual behavior, like coming out of hibernation early, has long been considered a giveaway for rabies, but that behavior might also indicate white-nose syndrome, which complicates things.

Susan Allot, Essex County director of preventative services, said to date there hasn’t been a positive rabies specimen in the county in 2014. She said any direct exposure to a wild animal, including feral cats, needs to be reported. Rabies can’t be transmitted through urine or feces, and squirrels, chipmunks, rats and mice are not rabies vector species.

—

Humans and bats

Kretser, Herzog and Allott all acknowledged that bat conservation efforts need to be balanced with human safety.

“Although many people live with bat colonies in their homes (attics, wall cavities, etc.) for years without incident, there is some increased risk of exposure as a result,” Herzog wrote. “Bats living nearby on the property in unoccupied, detached structures or in trees (usually their natural roost type) pose very little risk. Virtually everyone has bats living in their immediate surroundings.”

Kretser said human-constructed bat houses can give bats a safe place to find refuge if they wake from hibernation during the winter, and could even help them survive until spring.

Herzog said the DEC has always tried to increase public awareness on bats, but he questioned the effectiveness of bat houses. More important, he said, is for people to avoid disturbing hibernating bats.

“Given the large declines experienced, we have no shortage of high quality summer habitat at this time,” Herzog wrote. “On the other hand, conservation efforts aimed at the time when bats are hibernating underground in caves and abandoned mines have real potential to make a difference. Entering hibernation sites from October 1 through April 30 was known to be harmful to bats even before the arrival of white-nose, and we now know that it actually exacerbates the impact of the disease.”

Allott said that, either way, the best way for people to stay safe is to bat-proof their homes. That means shoring up any potential entry sites using screens or caulk.

“Bats are going to find someplace to be,” Allott said. “I think you’d probably rather have bats in a spot where you know they are, which is not in your house, under your roof, in your chimney or attic. If they will habituate a bat house, it might be a safer place for them to be.”

There is more to it than just giving bats a safer place to live. Herzog said a lot of people are working on a solution to white-nose syndrome, with little success.

Herzog explained that the variation in impact of white-nose syndrome between bat species stems from a complicated combination of factors like varying preferences in choosing hibernation locations, differences in robustness of their immune systems, and any number of other factors scientists don’t yet understand.

“The truth is that our understanding of the incredibly complicated web of interactions that constitutes the biosphere is far too limited to be able to predict the impacts of any given change, even one as large as the losses experienced due to white-nose,” Herzog wrote. “It’s clear that humanity is critically dependent on that web, and that losing species is a very risky experiment for humanity to undertake. We may not be able to say what the loss of any one of them will mean, but we can confidently predict that if too many strands in the web are lost then humanity will ultimately suffer.”

For more information, visit www.whitenosesyndrome.org.