Bat disease hits Riding Mountain National Park
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/09/2019 (2185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A deadly fungus killing millions of bats in North America has finally struck Riding Mountain National Park.
White-nose syndrome was confirmed in six bats in the park about 100 kilometres north of Brandon this spring and summer.
It’s the furthest known western spread of white-nose syndrome in Canada, according to an organization called the White-nose Syndrome Response Team, which tracks the spread of the fungus.
“It wasn’t a surprise to us, at all,” said Tim Sallows, a biologist at Riding Mountain National Park.
“Disappointing, but we knew it was coming.”
Sallows said the bats were found this spring and summer at the park’s east gate and in the Wasagaming townsite and were sent away for testing to confirm the presence of white-nose syndrome.
“We don’t know what the population (of bats at Riding Mountain) is, but we suspect it’s considerably lower than it has been,” he said. “And it’s not just here that it’s going to be affecting (bats), it’s all over.”
Since 2006, white-nose syndrome has caused rapid declines in bat populations across eastern North America and has killed at least 5.7 million bats since it was first discovered in a single cave in New York in 2006.
The fungus grows on bats while they hibernate in caves and abandoned mines, causing them to wake more frequently from hibernation and earlier than they should. This leads to depletion of their winter fat stores and also prompts them to leave their hibernation sites early. It can kill up to 90 per cent of a bat population.
White-nose syndrome does not pose a threat to humans; however, live or dead bats should not be handled as they do carry other diseases and parasites harmful to people.
Biologists from the University of Winnipeg have been capturing bats at Riding Mountain, swabbing for white-nose syndrome, taking photos of the bats’ noses and wings for scar tissue (which provides evidence of the disease), and then attaching passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags to the bats before they release them in order to try and determine where they overwinter, according to the Parks Canada website.
PIT tag readers are located at various cave entrances as well as on bat houses in the park. If tagged bats use these locations, the tag readers collect the data that the researchers then use to determine how the bats move around.
The park also has two heated bat houses to compare how the bats use them differently and if they help bats survive white-nose syndrome.
White-nose syndrome was first discovered in Manitoba in May 2018 at a cave near Lake St. George, in the northern Interlake.
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