Researchers prepare for white-nose syndrome’s spread

A recent New York Times article chronicled biologists’ efforts to combat white-nose syndrome as it spreads toward bats in the West. The article followed researchers in an abandoned mine in Ely, Nevada, where the bats were in pre-hibernation at the time, as they sought to study the effects the disease might have on Western bat populations. “This research will inform us which bats will be susceptible and which will be resistant, which will inform a conservation and intervention strategy,” Sarah H. Olson, associate director of wildlife health for the Wildlife Conservation Society, told the Times. The disease has spread to bats in South Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming.

Read the full story in the New York Times here.