I was not aware of this having been seen outside the Eastern and Central United States until I got this email from the European Federation today. I've copied it here for everyone's information:

Dear Caving Friends,

As you might know the presence of the White Nose Syndrome fungus (WNS), that have already killed more than one million bats in the USA (cf. http://www.caves.org/WNS/ ), has been detected in Europe (Dordogne, France). All the details about this presence has been stated in the article of Sebastien Puechmaille from the University College Dublin - Ireland :
http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/16/2/pdfs/09-1391.pdf

For the moment no fact has established that European bats would risk the same situation as in the USA - the researches are still going on - , but of course the principle of prevention has to apply. In the European speleological community, Italy seems to be the most advanced at this level since the SSI has sensitized its cavers of the risk and has already established preventive measures for the cavers in Italy not to be a factor of spreading the WNS outside of the caves they explore. The SSI document is available on :
- English version :
www.eurospeleo.org/main3/papers/wns/precauzioni_WNS_ITALIA_Eng_.pdf
- Italian version :
http://www.ssi.speleo.it/it/download/WNS/WNS-SSI.pdf

Face to this situation, the FSE is creating a "European WNS work-group", coordinated in a first period by Ioana Meleg, ECPC president, who will have the following objectives :
- Gathering all the available information on WNS in Europe
- Establishing what could be the proposals of European preventive measures according to each phase of the situation (present, pre-epidemic, epidemic, etc).
- Making proposals to the European speleological community and collect the expressed remarks
- Making the link with the situation in each country
- etc
Sebastien Puechmaille has informed us about his agreement to be part of this workgroup.

If you have information about WNS in your country or in other areas, or if you are interested to participate to the work of this European work-group, please send an email to : wns@eurospeleo.org
Of course we invite every motivated person to participate, it would be important to have at least 1 or 2 persons per European country.
Looking forward to reading you soon,
Best wishes,

for the/pour le Bureau,
Olivier Vidal
Secr. General FSE
European Speleological Federation
+33 6 81 61 16 70
Email : contact@eurospeleo.org
Web : www.eurospeleo.org
Forums : http://fsue.org/forums/ 

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Yes I go with my club to the EuroSpeleo Forum 2010 in Budapest !
      EuroSpeleo Forum - 7-9 May 2010 - Budapest - Hungary
              http://www.barlang.hu/speleohungary100

This is really bad news.  I think that every Mendip Cave has at least one bat.  I do not think that WNS is spread by cavers.  If you have ever seen a colony of Greater Horseshoe Bats in Winter Sleep, tightly packed together, you will realise that bat to bat infection is most likely  the cause.

I asked my tame bat man Dr Roger Ransome of Bristol University,  Here is his reply:

Tony,

Sorry for the long delay in coming back to you.  Couldn't access the ukcaving website link as I am not registered.  Assume it was about the French case of white nose fungus. Send the following to Paul Racey a few weeks ago, in response to his email with the paper attached:

Thanks also for sending me the WNS paper. Bad news I'm afraid.  Can't help feeling it is the result of the colder climate that is currently increasing.  I've never been a fan of Global Warming. Twice in my lifetime I've documented serious declines in GH bat populations - in the 1960s & 1980s.  Both times they were associated with a series of very cold winters and prolonged, cool springs. The first one, in the 1960s was associated with fungal infections, but only in the severe winter of 1962/3, when snow lay over the west country for nearly 3 months.  The problem developed after 2 months of snow cover & presumed total lack of winter foraging. The fungal infections resulted in ulcerations, expecially on the forearms and wings. Not on the nose-leaf, or nostrils.  It was pale greenish, & with long erect sporangiophores, like bread mould.  Some bats were festooned with the sporangiophores as they hung from the walls. We assumed they were dead, until we took them from the walls.  We watched the bats fly off after handling. In April we re-caught many of the bats in perfect condition.  Never seen it since, presumably because the same conditions have not occurred since then over the past 50 years of my study.

Presumably GH bats have experienced these conditions many times over the millions of years they have been around, & have an immune system that copes in the UK until an Ice Age comes along. Hopefully this is not the start of another, but just a shorter response to recent severe volcanic actiivity, very low sunspot levels, and an unfavourable OPD in the Pacific Ocean.  At least the severe downturn in global temperatures over the past 3 years might focus the scientific and political communities minds on the impossibility of humans being able to control the world's climate - apart from controlling human populations so that we can live comfortably within the planet's resources without environmental degradation, wars and human starvation. That was what the Copenhagen conference should have been discussing.

Hope it helps keep things in perspective.  Remember swine flu predictions?

Best wishes

Roger

The FSE have set up a WNS working group in Europe and have put together a fact sheet which they would like to bring to the attention of as many cavers as possible. I have uploaded a copy to the UKCaving Wiki, which you can download using this link:
WNS Factsheet

footleg said:

I have uploaded a copy to the UKCaving Wiki, which you can download using this link:
WNS Factsheet

Click to expand...

Thank you. You have just saved me a job.

Actually it probably ought to be on the BCA site too, so maybe you haven't

Wow that sucks, I wasn't aware it was anywhere outside of the US.

FWIW, I really don't think cavers contribute to the spread. I still follow proper decon after every trip (even though I've never even been in WNS caves) to ensure that beyond a shadow of a doubt I'm not going to aid the spread, but in reality I highly doubt it matters. They've closed caves left and right on us here (and sometimes in weird ways. Like, "lets just concrete the entrance so nothing can get in or out, that'll solve it!"  : stupid gov't) and yet even with closing down caves it has still spread...because uh, bats spread it to bats. AFAIK no record of any human to bat transmission, it's all bat to bat.

I hope your governments there don't go batty about trying to control it like they have here. Nature has a way of handling itself. Like I said, things have gotten outragous here, from massive closures (that clearly don't help as it still spreads) to concreting cave entrances (there you go, just take away habitat, that'll solve it!) to I've even heard ideas about treating the caves with antifungals that kill the one responsible for WNS. IMPO, best to just let nature take it's course. Some bats will live through it, and they'll reproduce, populations spring back. Kinda like the emerald ash borer we had here - killing all those trees - it spread and went around destroying a lot, but some ash trees survived, and now about 8 years later, they are springing right back.

I?m no expert but I?ve been doing a little research on WNS recently. I?ve made it as brief as I can...

Recent research carried out in the United States has linked occurrences of WNS to Geomyces destructans, a previously unknown variant of the Geomyces fungi group that live in soil, water and air. G. destructans thrives in environments with low temperatures and high humidity, in other words exactly the conditions encountered in hibernacula. At present it seems uncertain how the fungus causes WNS and how WNS causes the resultant mass deaths but researchers have noted that not all bats examined from affected hibernacula show all the signs of WNS, leading to the idea that the disease might have a sub form or stage, or that the fungus was already present in North America and has mutated for one reason or another.

In Europe, a different picture of WNS seems to be emerging. A report from Germany in 1983 included a picture of a bat with a white growth around its muzzle and went on to say that, though a number of bats had been observed with such a growth during cave surveys, none appeared to be any the worse for it.

By 2009, European researchers had confirmed the presence of both WNS and G. destructans in the Netherlands, Germany, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Switzerland (it is suspected in several other areas) although the associated mass deaths were not observed at any of the sites. In addition, a lesser mouse-eared bat with a highly visible fungal infection was tagged in Hungary during hibernation. The same bat was examined on two further occasions (August 2009 and February 2010) but showed no visible signs of infection. In March of 2010, a healthy French Greater mouse-eared bat is reported to have tested positive for G. destructans but also showed no sign of ill effects.

In October 2010, the Wild Places website reported that a pair of bats exhibiting a white fungal growth had been found (dead) in Wigpool Iron Mine in the Forest of Dean and retrieved for analysis. As of the date of writing (Nov/Dec 2010), the cause of death remains unknown but for the moment access to the mine is prohibited pending the outcome.

It?s probably too early for any conclusions but hopefully we won?t have the same problem in Europe as they?ve had in the United States.

chasroberts said:

In October 2010, the Wild Places website reported that a pair of bats exhibiting a white fungal growth had been found (dead) in Wigpool Iron Mine in the Forest of Dean and retrieved for analysis. As of the date of writing (Nov/Dec 2010), the cause of death remains unknown but for the moment access to the mine is prohibited pending the outcome.

Click to expand...

To bring you up to date on this, the analysis by the Veterinary Laboratories Agency did not show the presence of any Geomyses species. Wigpool is expected to be 'reopened' soon.

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the update, that's good to know - both for the bats and access to the mine, although the latter is a little out of  my area. Do you have a source for the info?

chasroberts said:

Do you have a source for the info?

Click to expand...

A copy of the report, dated 18/11/2010, sent by the VLA to (among others) the RFDCC.

Joe,

Thanks for that. I can add it to my scribblings on the WNS matter.

The US side of it can be found in the latest copy of Nat Geo magazine.

...or here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/12/bat-crash/quammen-text/1



Robbie Shone

That was actually one of the best articles on WNS in the states we've seen thus far. Basically because the whole article wasn't "bad cavers spreading this disease!" which is factually wrong anyway. g. destructans around doesn't mean the bats necesarily have WNS. Humans at "best" it is possible to transmit a few spores of g.destructans. There is a difference.

The only point in the article peeps here seem to have an issue with is the "it probably came from Europe in a caver's coveralls" - something of which there is still no proof that it is possible for cavers to move the g.destructans from one place to the next (the best study I can think of offhand was where someone caving in a WNS-positive cave they found 16 g.destructans spores on the un-clean coveralls but that hardly proves those spores could be transmitted to the next cave, are enough to cause WNS, etc.) and another (and seeminly more popular theory) is that the first cave it was found in was very close to a port and so basically stowaway bat on a freighter brought it. Which, while again a totally unproven theory, based on how WNS spreads a bat to bat transmission is MUCH more likely as that has been proven time and time again to occur. Also, stowaway bats have been known to happen.

*shrugs* it's basically all a mess anyway.

Although nicely the updated WNS map actually shows LESS WNS!! Basically, a couple counties in Tennessee previously listed as positive for WNS were downgraded. I do wish our WNS map had some sort of scale...for example in Oklahoma the county listed as "likely" was ONE bat found dead, no symptoms of WNS but they found traces of g.destructans on it but absolutely no clinical signs of WNS. But yet the county gets listed as "likely". For one bat. Without any symptoms. That probably didn't have WNS just exposure to the fungus at some point. Whereas some counties have seen thousands of deaths. Yet it's all the same on that map.

Still, the updated WNS map means that the farthest confirmed deaths from WNS (meaning, g.destructans found as well as clinical signs of WNS on the dead bats) is only as far West and South as two counties by each other in northeast Tennessee, one cave in each country (Worleys Cave and Grindstaff Cave). The spread does seem to be slowing, so we're crossing fingers and hoping come January the bats are still okay and happily hibernating. The checks done so far (that I know of) bats are okay. But it's early to tell, everyone says to hope it just holds until January.

</american perspective>

Map if ya'all are curious (and you'll note OK's "likely" which by the map legend says "WNS Symptoms found but not confirmed" is even wrong for OK...no symptoms on the *one* bat just traces of g.destructans. Or, the confirmed deaths in TN iirc Worley's cave at least was 2 or 3 bats, I don't remember about Grindstaff, but still, clearly numbers are very skewed that a couple deaths gets the same scale as counties that lost thousands such as in New York...hence I think we need a better map. )


Click to Enlarge

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11878001

I just spotted this news story on the BBC.

" .... it seemed as if species of bats in Europe were possibly more immunologically or behaviourally resistant to the fungus than North American species, as it did not increase mortality.

European bats may be resistant to the disease because they are generally bigger than comparable species in the US. Also, European colonies tend to be not as large as ones found on the other side of the Atlantic."

Well GD was just confirmed in Indiana (I'm not seeing clearly if it was just GD detected or WNS as well)...and a few other new spots (reports are starting to come in of new areas affected this winter) and so far, it's spreading based on the predicted path of spread done by the studies of bat migration route model - yay science and math for helping us yet again provide more evidence this is a bat to bat issue not a bat-human-bat issue. 'Course, that doesn't stop lobbyists and gov't from shutting down public caves and then now trying to get private owners to close caves too.

...maybe I should reconsider trying to hop the pond when I'm done with my graduate degree. Soon we won't be legally able to cave anywhere here *rollseyes*

Edit: ok seems Indiana is listed as "likely" and it seems that (SURPRISE SURPRISE) the cave that it was possibly found in (no histo results for WNS yet just GD presence) was actually closed for 2 or 3 years now to everyone because the state took over it and shut it back towards the start of the WNS to protect the bats. So no one has been in it for years, yet now they find possible WNS in that one. Seriously with all this cave closures because "cavers are at fault" crap makes me want to do this  :chair:

National plan published and publicised, link from BBC news:

http://www.fws.gov/whitenosesyndrome/pdf/WNSnationalplanMay2011.pdf

Nice. Interestingly I see no one from the NSS on the author list :/ I'll give it a good readthrough later but I don't see anything surprising in it, not much revision from the last one. It's nice it still seems that the authority is with state and local government rather than federal.

This is a very interesting published journal article about GD in Europe http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0019167 interestingly it seems that colonies there are visibly affected with WNS type symptoms but don't seem worse for it, and some species, as we are finding here in the states, seem totally resistant. Here the most affected so far seem to be our little species (like little browns) whereas the ones larger in body size are less affected.

Aren't your bats there in general larger than a lot of our American species? Just wondering how much body size may actually play a role.

Peter Burgess said:

" .... it seemed as if species of bats in Europe were possibly more immunologically or behaviourally resistant to the fungus than North American species, as it did not increase mortality.

European bats may be resistant to the disease because they are generally bigger than comparable species in the US. Also, European colonies tend to be not as large as ones found on the other side of the Atlantic."

Click to expand...

That last question has already been answered.

Sorry, read-up fail on my part!

What?! I thought everything was bigger in America?