On Tuesday, August 9, U.S. Congressman Rick Nolan announced that a $40,000 grant had been awarded to Minnesota from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to research and develop a response to white-nose syndrome (WNS), a disease that is killing millions of bats in Minnesota and across the country.
Minnesota’s first confirmed cases of WNS were reported in January 2016 at Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park where researchers discovered several hundred dead bats.
Discovered in North America in 2007 in eastern New York, WNS has killed an estimated 5.7 million bats throughout 34 states and five Canadian provinces.
WNS causes a fuzzy white fungus to grown on the muzzle of bats, hence its name White Nose Syndrome. The fungus also grows on their wings, tails and ears.
The grant will fund efforts to look for the fungus that causes the disease, carry out decontamination procedures at state caves and mines, monitor bat populations and write bat conservation plans. The Minnesota grant from FWS is a part of nearly $1 million donated to natural resource agencies in 34 states and the District of Columbia to combat the disease.
“Anyone who has spent time in the woods of Minnesota and returned home covered with bug bites understands the value of bats to our region–especially creatures like the northern long-eared bat that can eat three times their weight in mosquitoes in a single night,” Nolan said. “However, the true importance of these bats runs much deeper than that– they are critical to our ecosystem and agriculture in Northeastern Minnesota, and I applaud the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s commitment to combat the disease with this funding.”
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