10 Years After Discovery In NY Cave, White Nose Disease Arrives In California Bat Population

[hatrack]

The fungus that causes bat-killing white-nose syndrome — first detected more than a decade ago in New York — has now been found on bats in northeast California.

Researchers with the Fish and Wildlife Service and state of California announced Friday that tests confirmed "low levels" of the soil-based fungus — Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or Pd — were detected on three bats in the town of Chester, Calif., about 120 miles north of Sacramento.

None of the three bats was infected with the deadly disease, white-nose syndrome. But the discovery of the fungus signals it's just a matter of time before the disease itself is detected in bats, researchers say.

"The detection of Pd at Chester, even at these low levels, is troubling," said Alice Chung-MacCoubrey with the National Park Service Klamath Network, who led the surveillance work at Chester and several other Northern California sites. That's because in other states, detection of the fungus has "preceded detection of the disease itself by one to four years," she said.

EDIT

https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/07/08/stories/1060712369

[Delphinus]

1. I am sorry

to read this. If I remember correctly, the first I heard about it was with Elizabeth Kolbert's book, The Sixth Extinction - made me realize how really important bats are to the environment.