Bats in the United States are dying from a mysterious disease at such a rate that they face extinction.

“What we’ve seen so far is unprecedented. Most bat researchers would agree that this is the gravest threat to bats they have ever seen,” says Alan Hicks, leader of a New York Department of Environmental Conservation investigation into the problem (press release).

In some caves more than 90% of resident bats have succumbed to ‘white nose syndrome’, named after the fungus that covers the noses of some victims. Bats suffering from the problem seem to have run through their fat reserves months before they should be emerging from hibernation, says the DEC.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of this is that the syndrome has now reached the abandoned mine where half of New York’s endangered Indiana bats hibernate. “There are an awful lot of bat people, even a month ago before we had half of this bad news, all saying the same thing. We’ve never seen anything like it, and we’re all scared,” Hicks told Bloomberg.

Some are already drawing parallels with the colony collapse disorder that is devastating US bees.

There’s a great piece on this in Schenectady’s Daily Gazette.

Image: DEC