MONTGOMERY - White-nose syndrome may well be killing bats right here in Lycoming County.
A few years before the disease was discovered in New York, the state Game Commission counted about 4,500 bats populating a site in Brady Township in 2003-04.
In 2010, the same count revealed 2,500 bats. Last year, it was 455 bats, said Mario Giazzon, a wildlife diversity biologist with the Game Commission.
"I am concerned that (disease) is the reason we aren't seeing bats come out of here," Giazzon told Pennsylvania College of Technology students who
gathered last month to clean out a bat condo.
"It is a very destructive - the most devastating - zootic disease found here today," he said.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated on Jan. 17 that 5.5 million bats have died as a result of WNS.
Since 2006, scientists have traced the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome back to a single cave in Europe. Cavers apparently brought the fungal spores back with them, entered a cave in Albany, N.Y., and the disease spread from there, Giazzon said.
He gave the students maps showing the spread of the disease. As of March 2, it has been identified in places in Canada and as far west as Oklahoma, he said.
"Once the fungus gets into the cave system, it becomes part of the cave," he said.
At this point, he said, no one knows how to get it out of the cave systems.
The commission and other agencies are hoping to find a way to decontaminate caves and help the bats fight off the fungus.
The white fungus actually causes bats that are hibernating deep in caves or caverns to move closer to the entrances.
"When you get into colder temperatures, the bats burn through more fat reserves," Giazzon said. "Thirty days of fat reserve can be detrimental."
It also can cause bats to emerge during the winter because they are starving, to search for food. This can cause a bat to freeze to death.
At cave entrances, researchers have found hundreds and hundreds of dead bats, he said.
The fungus also can cause lesions on the bats' skin or wing membranes. It can be found on their noses or muzzles.
Scientists have found that using a fluorescent light inside a cave system is a good way to tell if the fungus is present.
The disease affects several species, including the little brown bat, big brown bat, northern long ear and the Eastern pipistrelle, Giazzon said.
Effects of the disease eventually could trickle down to people. Giazzon said the agricultural community soon could be spending more than $3 billion on herbicides and pesticides to combat the insects that bats would have been catching and eating.
More money spent in food production could result in an increase in food costs for the consumer.
"There could be a lot of negative impacts, not just to the bat population, but in untold ways I can't even imagine," he said.