Could Bucks County's Durham bats make a comeback? Researchers hope so
I’m very familiar with the old tale, that bats in flight are apt to get caught in a woman’s hair. Years ago, during an early evening walk with my wife and daughter on a back street of old Newtown, birds seemed to dart about the treetops in the twilight. From their erratic behavior, I suggested to Mary Anne and Genevieve they were bats.
“BATS!!”
Suddenly a footrace began down Court Street to escape certain doom — or at least a bat snagged in Mary Anne’s hair. I appealed for calm. There was nothing to worry about. They’re just going after insects. Bats are good, I said. “Here, watch this.” I tossed a small pebble high into the air to mimic an insect. A bat dove toward it, realized it was a stone and veered away. “See, they know what they’re going after — and it won’t be your hair.” No matter. Mary Anne didn’t want a close encounter. As much as I tried to overcome her fear, I was unable. But I knew the truth. I could attest to that from my college years.
As member of the National Speleological Society’s cave exploration club at the University of Florida, I knew a thing or two about bats. We explored and mapped caves throughout the Southern states on holiday breaks. Club initiation for its 50-plus explorers involved standing at sundown in a large rotunda in the bat cave outside Gainesville. That’s when bats from deep in the cave began their nocturnal flight. You could hear them coming, a whirl of beating wings. And then like a cloud they flew past. Thousands of them. Yet not a single one made contact, not so much as a wing tip. The tiny creatures used echo-location produced by high pitched chirps to avoid all obstacles — even us — as they flew by.
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Despite my assurances, Mary Anne was a no-go on my suggestion we visit the bat mine in Durham, in upper Bucks County. Former county Commissioner Joseph Catania had invited us to hike up Rattlesnake Hill to view the extraordinary roost of upwards of 8,000 bats who hibernated every winter inside the Colonial-era iron mine. In 2002, the Doylestown-based Heritage Conservancy took ownership of the bat cave in order to protect it. To bar any further trespass, the nonprofit agency erected a pad-locked entrance gate with steel slats to enable the bats to come and go at will.
By 2008, the three-level mine was home to as many as 10,000 little brown bats, big brown bats and Eastern pipistrelle bats. It was the second largest concentration in Pennsylvania. Nightly, each of the tiny mammals exited to consume an estimated 7.2 million insects in six hours of flight in the agriculture district of Upper Bucks. One bat devours an estimated 1,200 insects and mosquitoes every hour in summer, a blessing to farmers among others.
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Unfortunately, an incurable fungal infection discovered in Albany, New York, spread to Durham’s bats by 2009. When biologists entered the mine in 2013, they discovered carcasses everywhere and only 23 survivors. Two years later, there were only 13. White nose syndrome continued to spread, killing an estimated 6.7 million bats in the Northeast and Canada.
Pathologists traced the illness to a fungus, Geomyces destructans. They believe hikers from Europe brought it to the U.S. The Pennsylvania Game Commission rated the plague the worst wildlife disaster to ever hit North America. No cure has been found. However, surviving bats hibernating in colder areas of caves and mines were not infected.
Greg Turner, state game commission biologist in 2013, said he was optimistic about the future of the bat mine. “Since we know the Durham mine was a special site that attracted thousands of bats before the disease, along with the fact that it is a protected site,” he told the conservancy in 2013, “it will likely be a very important site for those few survivors out there and into the future should we see some stabilization in numbers and actual recovery.”
Unfortunately, that has not been the case. The last state count in 2018 revealed only eight remaining bats.
There are promising signs elsewhere. In Canada and Europe, bats have developed natural immunity and numbers are bouncing back. At Bucknell University, mammologists have shown UV light prevents the fungus from forming. They suggest UV bursts in bat caves and mines could be an answer. Here in Pennsylvania, bat populations in other locations are recovering. The state has helped by listing the mammals as endangered species giving them legal protection.
Meanwhile, experts insist bats are intelligent, clean and good to have around. After emphasizing this to my grandchildren, both Dashiell and Margaux are eager to experience the history of the Durham mines and a trip to the bat cave. I’m working on it.
Sources include “Bats May Be Poised for a Comeback from White-Nose Syndrome” by Lela Nargi published on March 17, 2018 in Sierra Club’s magazine Sierra; “Bats face long recovery from fungal disease” by Brian Whipkey published on April 24, 2022 in USA Today; “Heritage Conservancy’s Preserved Durham Bat Hibernaculum Wiped Out Due to White Nose Syndrome” posted on April 4, 2013 on the Heritage Conservancy’s website; “Dire Situation: Bats gain protection in Pennsylvania” by Kent Jackson published in March 2018 in Standard Speaker, plus help from Stephen Willey of the Durham Historical Society.
Carl LaVO, who thinks bats are kinda cute, can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County Durham bat colony yet to recover from white nose syndrome
