Funds help fight bat disease
Fungal disease is savaging populations
A federal funding commitment will better help scientists respond to the threat of white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease threatening the bat population across North America.
Environment Canada has announced $330,000 over the next four years toward the Canadian Cooperative Wildlife Health Centre in Saskatoon.
“We take our role in protecting and conserving species in Canada very seriously,” Environment Minister Peter Kent said in a news release.
The funding will allow the centre to co-ordinate national surveillance and response to the danger posed by white-nose syndrome, said Ted Leighton, the centre’s executive director.
“This disease ... has arrived and has caused us a great deal of work,” he said. “We co-ordinate a lot of the activities across the country associated with wild animal health and disease monitoring and research and investigation.”
The centre works with the five veterinary colleges — including the University of Calgary — and provincial and federal governments.
“We do a great deal of the actual examination of sick and dead wild animals to determine what disease they might have,” Leighton said. “So all of the diagnosis of white-nose syndrome as it has arrived in Canada ... goes through our laboratory.”
The disease, which has led to serious declines in the bat populations, has been found throughout Eastern Canada and the United States. At least 5.5 million bats — little brown bats, tri-coloured bats and northern long-eared bats — have died so far.
White-nose syndrome hasn’t yet hit Alberta, but Parks Canada and a team of experts have been working to tally the bats in Waterton Lakes National Park before its arrival.
In addition, the provincial government has boarded up the Cadomin Cave — a popular exploration cave in Whitehorse Wildland Provincial Park, near Hinton — to protect its little brown bat population. It’s the largest known bat hibernation location in Alberta.
Bats are an integral part of the ecosystem, eating their body weight each day in mosquitoes, moths and other agricultural pests.