White Nose Syndrome Is Back And Better Than Ever, Killing Millions Of Bats Despite Scientists' Best Efforts
Nat Geo – Western Pennsylvania — a few hours outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, there’s an abandoned, partially flooded railroad tunnel with a reputation for being haunted. Decades’ worth of graffiti warn the curious to stay away, while inside, a long corridor of fetid water sloshes about my knees as the daylight disappears.
And it’s true what they say about the place, by the way. An invisible killer lurks within.
Scientists call it Pseudogymnoascus destructans, or Pd. But it’s also known as the flesh-eating fungus that’s been annihilating bat populations across North America. In just over a decade, it has killed off upwards of six million bats.
But scientists aren’t giving up hope yet. In fact, there’s a slate of clever new projects in the works that are testing everything from pineapple extracts and ingredients in constipation medicine to lickable vaccines and ultraviolet radiation to turn the tide against the fungus.
Am I an asshole for not being upset about this in the slightest? Actually you know what, I take a little of that back. I was gonna use a picture of an actual bat with White Nose Syndrome but then I saw one and it made me feel a little like a dick, so I just used a picture of a vampire bat instead. Other than that, fuck all those dead bats. I’m not sad about over 6 million of them dying from a flesh eating fungus at all.
I honestly can’t think of one single redeeming quality about bats. That’s not even a stretch. What? They hang upside down? So what. They’re blind. They come out at night and eat innocent bugs and sometimes give people rabies. There’s that place in Texas you can go and see thousands of them and I guess that stimulates the economy but if you’re gonna sit here and tell me they can’t figure out another way to make some money for the parks and recreation department I’ll call you a liar right to your fucking face.
That fact of the matter is this. Some people might like bats. I get that. These scientists trying to create vaccines and magical pineapple sprays probably really like bats. You know who hated bats though? Batman. Batman fucking hated bats. That’s why he became Batman. So basically if you wanna eradicate White Nose Syndrome, not only are you slapping God in the face, you’re slapping Batman right in his mask. I don’t know much about religion, or comics for that matter, but I’m pretty sure those are 2 guys you don’t wanna piss off.
