LAKE MEAD (KTNV) — The National Park Service is checking bats around the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to make sure they are healthy.
According to rangers, teams from Mojave Desert Network Inventory & Monitoring have been netting bats and training new techs as they check for a fungus that causes White-Nose Syndrome or WNS.
The Pseudogymnoascus destructans (pd) fungus can grow on the face and wings of some species of bats while they hibernate. It causes them to wake up from hibernation more often, which causes the bats to burn up their fat reserves too quickly and can lead to WNS.
The National Park Service said since WNS was first discovered in New York state in 2006, over a million bats across the country have died from the the disease.
In order to test the bats, technicians set up tall nets over water to catch foraging bats. In our area, the crew caught over 70 bats, which represented five different species. That includes Yuma myotis, big brown, canyon, Mexican free-tailed and California leaf-nosed bats.
Rangers said there is no evidence of the disease in bat colonies across the Mojave Desert or in our area. They added they're monitoring bat populations here to make sure WNS doesn't become a problem in the future.
