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Bats' White-Nose Syndrome May Be Cured
New submitter alabamatoy writes: Several news outlets are reporting that a common bacteria may be proving successful in curing "white-nose syndrome" which has been decimating the bat populations across North America. A new treatment using a common bacterium was developed in Missouri by Forest Service scientists Sybill Amelon and Dan Lindner, and Chris Cornelison of Georgia State University. The Nature Conservancy reports: "On May 20, 2015, Scientists and conservationists gathered outside the historic Mark Twain Cave Complex in Hannibal, Missouri, to release back into the wild some of the first bats successfully treated for deadly White-Nose Syndrome." Bats are a key player in the environment, keeping insect populations under control, especially mosquitoes.
I just wanted to add, that I am a donor to the Nature Conservancy. They do a lot of good work, and I am happy to see that my money is helping to save these little critters. If you are looking for a worthy cause, you should check them out. Unlike some other environmental organizations (Sierra Club, Greenpeace, NRDC, etc.) they focus on pragmatic solutions rather than political lobbying, advertising, and public relations.
Hopefully the treatment will be amenable to some sort of relatively 'hands off' dispersal method. Veterinary care as all well and good(and, certainly, if it doesn't work in that environment, it probably doesn't work, so it's an obvious place to do R&D); but cave conditions are difficult enough that you won't make a dent in mortality unless you can 'dust' a cave, or set up aerosol dispersal at a cave entrance, or some other wholesale distribution mechanism. Even something that you have to spray directly on affected animals would be pretty tricky in a lot of these roosting environments.
Cute, and potentially deadly weapons of mass destruction! Note that your concern about germs has not gone unconsidered in history.
Excerpted from The Scientific Method by Louis Fieser:
The carrying power of a 10-11 gram bat is indeed amazing, some 15-18 grams; the incendiary bomb was in this range (17.5 grams). Bats can carry such loads for miles. And bats with dummy bombs released in housed areas dragged the loads into sites highly favorable for fire-starting. We released bats successfully at various altitudes both from the B-2 S and from an open Attack Bomber, in which flying was great fun. The smoke bombs functioned satisfactorily and provided further information. Col. Epler and the Qther officers all favored a full-scale trial with live incendiaries to be injected for a 10-minute take-off just before release. I considered a live test highly hazardous and likely to lead to disclosure o£ the project. I also thought it unnecessary. But the officers insisted that a report to the CWS and AAF chiefs would be incomplete without it and so, on a Saturday, a live test was scheduled for the following Monday.
Everything went off on schedule, and shortly after dinner the bomber flew in loaded with shrieking, kicking bats. The airmen had taken delight in a form of hunting which consisted in swinging landing nets at the mouth of an inexhaustible cave, and the crates were all jam full. The crates were loaded into the truck and the refrigeration turned on full tilt. But the howling went on without abate for a couple of hours, and it became evident that the refrigerating unit was not adequate to cope with such a large amount of body heat all of a sudden. So we mounted a series of fans in positions to blow air in over cakes of ice. Finally, about midnight, the noise ceased; hibernation had been accomplished. A night watch of soldiers took over, and we turned in.
The next day the bats were still nicely quiet and we started a trial with the lightest of the dummy bombs. A first batch of bats in hibernation with weights attached was dumped out of the bomber at a low altitude, 2,000 ft. as I recall. The ground crew scurried around in jeeps and eventually located a group of free-fallers large enough to show that few if any of the bats had come out of hibernation. Other batches were released from higher and higher altitudes, which made reconnaissance increasingly difficult. Eventually it was clear that the bats were not in hibernation but dead. Our cooling had been too efficient, too sudden.
Imagine, then, a surprise attack on Tokyo in which a succession of bombers would operate at high altitude for about half an hour, say starting at midnight, each delivering a load of bat-bombs equivalent to some 3,700 fires. There would be no explosions or fire bursts to give warning, and the bombers would depart. With the activated mechanisms all set for a fourhour delay, bombs in strategic and not easily detectable locations would start popping all over the city at 4 a.m. An attractive picture? AU those working on the project thought so. Then, suddenly, X-ray was cancelled. I never learned the reason, but can make a guess. The bats would be vectors for bombs, but they would be vectors also for germs. Our side might be accused of initiating biological warfare. But the job was done very effectively by M-69s.
Interestingly enough, it's difficult to find quantitative information ranking mosquito predators. I tried, and all I came up with was a literature review on British mosquito predation, which primarily listed lots of things known to eat mosquitoes if placed in a tank with only mosquitoes. That paper also made the comment that it's difficult to find information. The phrase "poorly understood" is frequently found in the papers I did come across.