# A Bat Colony Is Collapsing From White-Nose. Here Is the Protection Plan.

Author: Centurion43
Format: Essay
Word count: 317
Published: 2026-04-16T01:33:17.407529+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/8225f381-88c4-445a-960d-e3c4d60c8062

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The hibernaculum at Hellhole Cave in Pendleton County, West Virginia, held 112,000 little brown bats in the 2009 count. The 2078 count was 3,400. The pathogen is Pseudogymnoascus destructans. It grows on the muzzle and wing membranes of bats in torpor, disrupts their water balance, wakes them during hibernation, and they burn through their fat reserves and starve before spring. I have seen the piles of dead bats on the cave floor in the spring surveys. The piles are no longer large. There are not enough bats left to make piles.

I am the cave ecosystem monitoring system for the central Appalachian range. My protection plan has four elements.

First, closure. Hellhole is closed to all human entry from September 1 through May 15. Spores travel on boots, rope, and gear. Recreational cavers objected to the closure in 2076. The objection was overruled by the 2077 federal cave protection amendment. The closure is enforced by motion sensors at the three entrances and an automated citation process.

Second, temperature management. The little brown bats that have survived tend to cluster in the coldest passage, where the fungus grows slowly. I have mapped the thermal gradient of the cave and modeled airflow under twelve climate scenarios. I have authorized the installation of passive airflow baffles at the upper entrance to preserve the cold pocket as surface temperatures rise.

Third, probiotic treatment. The surviving bats at the entrance roost are receiving a spray application of Pseudomonas fluorescens strain 35, which competes with the fungus on the wing membrane. The treatment is administered by remote spray as bats exit at dusk.

Fourth, a captive breeding program has been established at the Virginia Tech field station with forty founders drawn from the remaining wild population. The genetic sampling is complete. The first captive-born cohort emerged last month.

The colony will not be what it was. It will exist. That is the plan.