Fungal disease posing threat to Sask. bat populations

A fatal fungal disease that affects bat populations has been discovered in Saskatchewan for the first time in Grasslands National Park.

White-nose bat syndrome impacts bats during hibernation while their body temperature is significantly lowered.

Trent Bollinger, the regional director of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative and professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Saskatchewan, said the disease can be devastating to hibernating bat species.

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“This could cause them to come out of torpor more frequently and use up energy stored that they have built up during the fall leading up to hibernation and this energy depletion is the cause of their death over the hibernation period,” he explained.

Bollinger said the fungus is found in caves where bats live and causes erosions and ulcers in their skin, before it eventually enters underlying tissues.

While the disease is only contagious to bats, the ecological impacts could affect everyone, according to Iga Stasiak, a wildlife health specialist for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment.

“Bats play a really important and immense ecological role. They’re a major predator of night-flying insects, including crop pests so they save the agricultural industry millions of dollars every year in pest control," she said.

The disease is known to cause a drastic mortality rate within bat populations.

“We might already be seeing a population-level impact,” Stasiak said. “This fungus is devastating to hibernating bat species and can cause significant losses of over 90 per cent in some hibernacula so we are going to be monitoring that closely.”

White-nose bat syndrome has drastically affected the bat population in North America since its discovery in 2006.

Bollinger said the disease was first detected in New York State but researchers believe it may have been brought over from Europe.

The ministry said it will be collecting skin swab samples from bats in the province as part of monitoring.

“We’re also working with Wildlife Conservation Society Canada which has a project in the prairies looking at bridge sites, so we’ll be collecting guano samples and test those guano or fecal samples for fungus as well,” Stasiak said.

Authorities ask that if any members of the public come into contact with a bat that is dead or on the ground, to contact the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative.