WHITE NOSE SYNDROME:  Trying to understand and manage 
a bat-killing disease… details ahead on Passport to Texas.

This is Passport to Texas

White nose syndrome is a fungal disease that attacks 
hibernating bats. 

07— So, the way that white nose hurts them and is fatal to them is by 
irritating their skin while they’re hibernating.

Jonah Evans is a mammologist with TPW. A skin irritation 
doesn’t sound fatal, but expending energy reserves is.

19—Hibernation for a bat is a very narrow budget of energy that they’re 
trying to make last for many months. And the process of waking up, 
cleaning off your wings, and fidgeting around a little bit, burns off critical 
energy—and the result is starvation. They’re just not able to make it 
through hibernation.

It seems not all bats are affected by WNS even if infected. 
 
24— If a bat does not hibernate, it means that bat is active all winter 
long. Some of those stay here in the southern part of the state, but other 
ones migrate down to Mexico and Central America. And even if those 
bats get the disease, because they’re active year round, there’s hope that 
they’ll be constantly replenishing their calories and they won’t perish 
because of the disease. 

Mexican free-tailed bats—the ones in the big caves in 
Texas—are migratory. Currently, Texas is WNS free. Yet, 
as a priority species researchers are doing what they can 
to understand the issue and to develop a management 
plan should it come to our state.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti. 






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