Prospectus

Issue date: 9/16/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Erika Schultz, Seattle Times A little brown bat rests in the green-gloved hands of specialist Pat Ormsbee, August 23, 2009, in Cle Elum, Washington.

WENATCHEE NATIONAL FOREST-The tiny male bat didn't expect to wind up in a biologist's hand when he set out in search of a nighttime snack along Box Canyon Creek.

After being snagged in a net, weighed and measured, the unhappy creature gnashed its teeth and squirmed as Pat Ormsbee stretched its wing for inspection.

The light from a headlamp shone through the translucent tissue, revealing bones tinier than toothpicks.

"This is one of the key things we need to be looking for," Ormsbee said, scanning for rips or scars that could signal infection with white-nose syndrome, the mysterious blight that has devastated bat colonies in the northeastern United States.

This bat-its body no bigger than an apricot-is given a clean bill of health.

Though wildlife officials in Washington and Oregon have received scattered reports of bat deaths this year, there's no evidence of large-scale die-offs and no sign of the fungus believed to be the cause of white-nose syndrome.

"We don't expect it to be here already," Ormsbee said. "But we need to start doing surveillance early."

More than 1 million bats already have perished in what one expert described as the most precipitous decline in American wildlife in recorded history. Extinctions are likely if the white-nose disease continues to spread, and could lead to a population explosion of mosquitoes and other insect pests normally held in check by the winged predators.

Ormsbee, a bat expert with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, leads the Bat Grid-one of the nation's most comprehensive programs to monitor the flying mammals. Since 2002, she has enlisted more than 100 volunteers and biologists across the Northwest to regularly trap bats, record their calls and collect their DNA.

"I don't know of anyone else that has collected this level of data over ... such a large area," Ormsbee said.

With the appearance of white-nose syndrome, the project has taken on new urgency and significance.

Having good baseline data will alert scientists to abrupt drops in bat populations. Bat "gridders" also may be the first to spot signs of infection and identify bat caves and other sanctuaries that should be closed to protect the animals.

Continued...

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