White Nose Syndrome

White Nose Syndrome seems to be serious. No, I'm not talking about accidentally getting your nose to close to your cappuccino foam. I'm talking about Bats. I don't like bats, but this story has to do with my Alma Mater so I wanted to share.

Welcome to the "Bat Project"

Bat Photography

Dr. Andrew Barrass, Associate Professor of Biology at Austin Peay State University, is the Project Manager and Principal Investigator working with the APSU Center of Excellence for Field Biology to monitor the potential spread of WNS (White Nose Syndrome) in the state of Tennessee. Fellow researchers, Graduate student Morgan Kurz, and undergraduate student Seth McCormick, are studying bats using transect monitors at Dunbar Cave and Land Between The Lakes. The APSU research team is also developing a microscale GIS map of Dunbar Cave to help aid in the understanding of bat habitation. APSU is currently the only university asked by the state to monitor and develop research concerning the White Nose outbreak.

Bat Project Students:

Seth McCormick and Morgan Kurz
In February 2006 some 40 miles west of Albany, N.Y., a caver photographed hibernating bats with an unusual white substance on their muzzles. He noticed  several dead bats. The following winter, bats behaving erratically, bats with white noses and a few hundred dead bats in several caves came to the attention of New York Department of Environmental Conservation biologists, who documented white-nose syndrome in January 2007. Hundreds of thousands of hibernating bats have died since. Biologists with state and federal agencies and organizations across the country are still trying to find the answer to this deadly mystery.