In the New England area as many as 95% of the cave bats are dead.. The researchers say they have reason to believe that the WNS fungus is being spread by cavers or other humans going into caves.  If people don’t go into caves for a year and the malady continues to spread, that will indicate that people (cavers) aren’t really responsible for spreading WNS.  If people don’t cooperate and continue to go caving, the only measurable result will be animosity between those who don’t go underground and those who do. Really a shameful result. 

What the researchers have found out, if anything, isn’t being reported because researchers don’t usually release findings piecemeal.  They wait until they complete their studies before data is released.  We, the general caving public, need to cooperate and give them every chance to do their work as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. It’s suspected that it may be a virus that affects the bat immune system and in that weakened condition the fungus WNS moves in.  Any creature that dies in a cave (cricket, mouse, bug, etc.) is very quickly covered with a white fungus (but that fungus is not the same as WNS).  WNS is a new species of fungus not heretofore identified that moves in on live bats. Where did it come from, where’s it been hiding?  Did it come over from Hong Kong on a container ship, or out of your basement where you kept your dirty clothes?  Or maybe it’s come from the subways in some of our major cities?  If it’s a virus, is it a viral mutation caused by something new that’s been introduced into our environment (GMO crops, microwaves)?  There are many, many questions, but the demise of our cave bats, which eat millions of insects in warm weather, will certainly affect ALL OF US. 

WNS has been found in Pendleton County in West Virginia and in Highland, Bath, and Giles Counties in Virginia.  The Monongahla Nation Forest has closed all their caves as requested by the US F & W . The West Virginia Cave Conservancy (WVCC) has closed their caves , three of them big ones in Greenbrier County, and a number of private land owners have closed their caves as requested by the US F & W and the NSS.

by Bob Handley,  President of WVCC
NSS Member #1002    FE, RL, LB