Delaware is using federal funds it recently received to fight a fungal disease in bats, but state officials still see work to do to combat it.
Fort Delaware State Park is one place the fungus that’s making several endangered species of bats sick with White Nose Syndrome can be found.
State wildlife biologist Holly Niederriter said the state is bleaching and sweeping the fort to help fight that fungus, known as Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or PD.
“When we go back and we’re testing for PD, which we’ve done for these treatments, inadvertently what we’ve found out is that the amount of PD present is getting lower and lower every year, and that’s a good sign,” Niederriter said.
White Nose Syndrome occurs when PD gets on a bat’s skin, limiting their fat reserves and electrolytes, ultimately causing them to die. It has wiped out between 5.7 to 6.7 million bats throughout North America over the last decade.
Species affected by White Nose Syndrome include the little brown bat, big brown bat, tri-colored bat, northern long-eared bat and eastern small-footed bat. Niederriter said all of these species are found in Delaware. The little brown bat and northern long-eared bat have been considered endangered species since 2014.
In continuing to research the fungal disease, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is monitoring the bat population at the fort with acoustic detectors that listen for bat calls. This determines what species are calling, and as a result, helps researchers understand what species of bat are still out there. Other methods to curb its spread include requiring tourists to wear white shoe coverings provided by the park in parts of Fort Delaware where the fungus is present.
“We don’t want them to pick up it up on their shoes and go to some other state far away or some other country and bring that fungus to another country,” Niederriter said.
DNREC has been taking steps like this since it started monitoring for White Nose Syndrome in 2009. Over time, the state has seen a decrease in the fungus at Fort Delaware, but they’re not sure if that’s simply because there’s already fewer bats than before, Niederriter said.
It’s one question being studied with the federal funds Delaware recently received, but Niederriter expects it will be a while before bat population numbers come back.
