White Nose Disease Confirmed Pike CO, MO - Dozens Of Caves Statewide Will Be Closed

Dozens of Missouri's bat caves will be closed as a result of the recent discovery of white nose syndrome, a fungus responsible for killing more than a million bats in the eastern United States.

Officials with the Missouri Department of Conservation confirmed Monday that the disease was detected in a little brown bat in a cave in Pike County in the northeastern part of the state.

The deadly disease was first discovered in New York in 2006 and has been rapidly spreading west. With the Pike County discovery, Missouri becomes the 12th state with a confirmed case of white nose syndrome, state conservation officials said. "We've been tracking it move through Tennessee and thought we might have a little grace period, at least a year anyway," said Bill Elliott, a Missouri Department of Conservation cave biologist. "So, it was a bit of a surprise that it jumped this far this fast."

EDIT

The discovery will trigger the closure of 80 bat caves on land managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation, according to a plan approved by the agency the day after the Pike County case was reported in mid-April. Judd Slivka, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said the agency is evaluating what to do with the bat caves on property it owns. Some of Missouri's most popular caves are in state parks such as Onondaga and Meramec. The vast majority of Missouri's 6,300 caves are privately owned and will be unaffected by state or federal closure orders.

EDIT

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/31AF48C3EE193F608625770B000459C9?OpenDocument

:(