Bat Quest

• Sunday, April 3, 2016 Enterprise Editor Virginia Hutchins [ 208-735-3242 • vhutchins@magicvalley.com ] • B1

THE BIG STORY

STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional wildlife biologist Ross Winton observes a Townsend’s big-eared bat March 10 in a cave north of Shoshone.

BAT QUEST Strenuous Ordeal in Arco Tunnel Boosts Bat Science

See a gallery of more photos of Idaho bats and the scientists and cavers who monitor them.

ALEX RIGGINS ariggins@magicvalley.com‌

Forest Service, along with state fish and game agencies and university researchers.

White-nose syndrome is caused by Pseudogymnoascus destructans, a fungus that kills bats while they hibernate.

The disease has caused a catastrophic decline in bat populations in the East since the its 2006 discovery in a New York cave.

“WNS is now recognized as one of the most devastating wildlife epidemics in recorded history,” Winifred Frick, Sebastien Puechmaille and Craig Willis, university researchers who work internationally, wrote in a 2016 paper.

‌ RCO • In the cold darkness deep inside A Arco Tunnel, I lay on the hard lava rock, arms folded across my chest, my helmeted head resting on the ground. I switched off my headlamp, making the darkness complete, and drifted into sleep.‌ I had crawled into Arco Tunnel at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve several hours earlier to observe a team monitoring bats to learn more about the creatures’ hibernacula behavior. But after several hours of crawling, shimmying, scooting and rolling through hundreds of yards of lava tubes, I had learned something about my own behavior: If I’m exhausted enough, I can sleep comfortably on rocks.

I made this discovery thanks to Todd Stefanic, the lead wildlife biologist at Craters of the Moon, and Virginia Hutchins, the Times-News’ enterprise editor. Hutchins convinced Stefanic to let a reporter follow him around a cave for a day, and on Feb. 11 I met up with him and four others to document the work they’re doing to study bat populations in southern Idaho.

Stefanic, who works for the National Park Service, spends about half his work time studying bats. It became an essential job function over the past decade as white-nose syndrome, introduced to the U.S. a decade ago, rapidly spread west and decimated bat populations.

Stefanic and others who study bats in southern Idaho are in the fourth year of a five-year survey to monitor behavior.

After next winter, they’ll analyze their data and hopefully learn more about local bat populations — how they migrate, how they hibernate, which caves they like to hibernate in, which caves they don’t. With this information, they’ll be better prepared to enact conservation efforts and to study the effect of white-nose syndrome upon its inevitable arrival in Idaho.

Please see FUNGUS, B2

Please see ARCO, B3

COURTESY OF BRUCE JENNINGS, SILVER SAGE GROTTO‌

Silver Sage Grotto member Jody Burnham reads a map March 19 in a cave near Shoshone.

As Deadly Fungus Approaches, Idaho Scrambles to Investigate Bats MYCHEL MATTHEWS mmatthews@magicvalley.com‌

TWIN FALLS • Chances are you’ve seen them just after sunset — dark winged bodies flitting against a pale sky.‌ Despite their menacing look, these creatures of the night are a danger only to the tons of flying insects they consume every night. But so far, Idaho’s bats are defenseless against an oncoming threat that has devastated bat populations in the Eastern U.S. and last week was confirmed in Washington state.

In a race against time, wildlife biologists have enlisted the help of professionals and amateurs alike to learn as much about bats and white-nose syndrome as they can as the disease spreads to the West. But such information will be beneficial only if scientists can use it to limit the spread of the disease or to find treatment options to reduce disease mortality.

On board the North American Bat Monitoring Program are the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Parks Service and U.S.

More Inside

With this story on Magicvalley.com, see a map detailing the spread of white-nose syndrome across the Eastern U.S.

Economic Impact of Bats, B2 • 3 Cool Facts about Bats, B2 8 Bat Myths and Misconceptions, B2 • 14 Bats Species of Idaho, B4

ALEX RIGGINS, TIMES-NEWS‌

TOP: Idaho Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Ross Winton, left, crouches to examine an insect as Jim Bromberg, center, and Todd Stefanic help illuminate it inside Arco Tunnel on Feb. 11.

BOTTOM: Townsend’s big-eared bats (Corynorhinus townsendii) hibernate in Arco Tunnel on Feb. 11.

COMING MONDAY: • How to Build a Bat House

B2 • Sunday, April 3, 2016

Economic Impact of Bats

Ross Winton and Randall McBride exit a cave March 10 north of Shoshone.

PHOTOS BY STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Fungus

‌Bats are worth their weight in gold, so to speak.

Overall, bats prevent $3.7 billion a year in crop damage and pesticide use in the U.S., according to Bat Conservation International, a group dedicated to promoting bats.

For example, cucumber beetles eat spinach and corn, and their larvae, corn rootworms, can reduce corn yields by up to 13 percent.

But a single big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), a species found in Idaho, can have a heavy impact on the rootworm population.

The bat — one of the largest in the U.S. — weighs a mere .5 to 1.2 ounces. But agronomists estimate a colony of 150 big brown bats will eat 38,000 cucumber beetles in a single growing season, preventing the beetles from producing 18 million corn rootworms.

Corn rootworm control costs about $25 per acre to do what big brown bats do for free.

Bats are also important pollinators.

—Mychel Matthews

Continued from B1

A powdery white growth encases the nose and mouth of an infected bat. The fungus also grows on its wings, causing lesions. The bat’s immune system goes into overdrive, mounting a hyper-attack on the fungal spores and causing the bat’s body to burn off its energy reserves before the end of hibernation. The bat wakes to a harsh, cold environment with no food or water.

Since 2006, bats with whitenose syndrome have been confirmed in 28 states and five Canadian provinces; until a hiker’s March 11 discovery of an infected little brown bat near North Bend, Wash., the disease had been confirmed only as far west as Oklahoma.

“We are extremely concerned about the confirmation of WNS in Washington state, about 1,300 miles from the previous westernmost detection of the fungus that causes the disease,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said in a release. “... It is important that we stay focused on stopping the spread of this fungus. People can help by following decontamination guidance to reduce the risk of accidentally transporting the fungus.”

Prevention includes rigorous rules about decontaminating caving gear and clothing — anything that’s exposed while inside a cave.

Bat populations are particularly fragile because most species give birth to only one pup per year.

“Bats require high survival to ensure stable or growing populations,” wrote Tom O’Shea, a U.S. Geological Survey emeritus research scientist. A hard-hit population may take years to recover after a single epidemic; it may never recover after a multiple-year epidemic.

“Many of the 1,300 species of bats on Earth are already considered threatened or declining,” O’Shea said.

But the threat of white-nose syndrome is the greatest of all.

Coordinated Effort‌‌

Bats are critical to the planet’s health, so critical that when white-nose syndrome was discovered in New York, the first reaction was to lock down human access to caves on public lands. Eventually federal agencies reopened many of the caves to responsible entities in order to monitor the bat population.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has spent $24 million since 2008 on white-nose syndrome research and response, and nearly $5 million in 2015 alone. Some of that money went to states.

“After the onset of white-nose syndrome, every state with bats wanted to start their own bat data set, so it was like comparing apples and oranges,” said Todd Stefanic, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.

Tom Rodhouse, who outlined the North American Bat Monitoring Program, proposed an organized effort with researchers in each state doing the same thing.

The national bat inventory began in 2015.

“We each do the same monitoring, so we can compare Idaho numbers with numbers in South Carolina,” said Stefanic, who has been in Idaho since 2011. “There

3 Cool Facts about Bats Hanging from their Toes‌

Bats don’t have to sleep upside down. But they like to sleep as high as they can get to stay out of predators’ reach. Researchers say it’s also easier for bats to take off from the hanging position, in case of danger.

So they hang from the ceiling or anything they can grip — even if it’s each other.

Voracious Mamas‌ Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional wildlife biologist Ross Winton, right, and wildlife technician Randall McBride descend into a cave March 10 north of Shoshone.

Pregnant or nursing bats eat their own weight in insects every night — 600 to 1,000 mosquitoes per hour.

Medical Potential‌

Vampire bat saliva contains chemicals — glychoproteins called Draculin — that keep blood from clotting while the bat is drinking its human victim’s blood. Scientists are researching Draculin’s medicinal qualities as an anticoagulant.

Researchers say the anticoagulant in vampire bat saliva may be useful as a treatment for strokes and heart attacks — and may eventually be used to prevent heart attacks.

The common vampire bat is found in the tropics of Mexico, Central America and South America.

—Mychel Matthews

8 Bat Myths and Misconceptions

Biologist Ross Winton counts bats March 10 in a cave north of Shoshone.

“After the onset of whitenose syndrome, every state with bats wanted to start their own bat data set, so it was like comparing apples and oranges.”

Todd Stefanic, a wildlife biologist for the National Park Service at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. were a couple guys who did some research in the ‘90s, but there has been no consistent effort in winter before now.”

Rita Dixon of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game kicked off the bat count’s Idaho effort last year, dividing the state into grids for acoustic surveys at a sampling of random locations to detect the high-pitched frequencies emitted by bats as they navigate in the dark. Researchers can map out the bats’ ranges using the acoustic surveys in a nonintrusive way.

This year, the National Park Service hired Kathleen Slocum as the bat monitoring program’s coordinator for Washington, Idaho and Oregon.

Enlisting Recreational Cavers‌‌ There are 48 species of bats in the U.S. and 14 in Idaho, including

several which the state considers species of special concern.

Not much is known about bats in Idaho and their various hibernacula, said Ross Winton, a wildlife biologist with Fish and Game in Jerome. To learn how the disease works — why the fungus infests one cave and not another, and why it infects some species of bats and not others — individual caves must be monitored for temperature and humidity, and bats must be counted.

So Winton in mid-March approached south-central Idaho spelunkers from Silver Sage Grotto about joining the national effort to identify which bat species hibernate where, and to monitor cave conditions.

“Grotto” means “cave,” but in this instance grotto is the term for a local chapter of the National Speleological Society, which has more than 200 grottoes in the

For this project, reporter Mychel Matthews eagerly entered her first cave with wildlife biologist Ross Winton. At the next cave, rattlesnake skins hanging from the entrance’s ceiling kept her inside Winton’s pickup instead.

U.S. and three in Idaho.

Grotto members are fascinated by the bat and consider it their mascot, said Steve Frye, who coordinates the local grotto’s caving trips.

“This is the animal of the cave,” Frye said. “We are going into their home. We teach people to respect the cave — how not to hurt the cave or hurt the animals or hurt themselves.”

Ordinarily, the cavers wouldn’t enter caves when bats are hibernating, said Chris Anderson, the group’s co-founder. It would be like signing a bat colony’s death warrant. Bats are light hibernators, and a caver’s body heat is enough to wake a bat — which would, with no food source during winter, subject it to starvation.

Please see FUNGUS, B4

‌ yth: Bats are blind.

M Truth: Bats have good vision and use echolocation to navigate, increasing their accuracy in flight.

Myth: Bats attack people.

Truth: Most bats are gentle animals and have no interest in humans.

Myth: Bats are pests.

Truth: The benefits of bats far outnumber the few — if any — negative traits.

Myth: Bats are flying mice.

Truth: Bats are not rodents.

Bats are classified in their own order of mammals called Chiroptera, meaning “hand-wing.”

Myth: Bats are unnecessary.

Truth: Bats are critical to the nation’s ecology and economy.

Myth: All bats have rabies.

Truth: Less than 1 percent of bats have rabies. You are more likely to be killed by lightning than by rabies, and even less likely to die from the bite of a rabid bat.

Myth: Bats suck blood.

Truth: Most of the 1,300 kinds of bats in the world are insectivores. Only three — the common vampire bat, the hairy-legged vampire bat and the white-winged vampire bat — feed solely on blood, and none of the three makes its way north of Mexico.

Myth: Bats are dirty.

Truth: Bats are clean and groom themselves daily.

—Mychel Matthews

Sunday, April 3, 2016 • B3

PHOTOS BY ALEX RIGGINS, TIMES-NEWS‌

National Park Service vegetation ecologist Jim Bromberg, left, points across the snow near the entrance of Arco Tunnel on Feb. 11, as he talks to Idaho Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Ross Winton, foreground, and NPS intern Arianne Millet. Craters of the Moon lead interpreter Sandra Gladish, second from right, listens as NPS wildlife biologist Todd Stefanic radios in the group’s location and time of entry into the cave.

Arco Continued from B1

“It’s important to build this baseline knowledge, to know what’s going on when white-nose finally gets here,” Stefanic said.

“We don’t know a lot about what’s going on with them, especially in Craters.”

But to capture and record all this information requires physically demanding work.

“That’s why typically we only do one cave survey a week,” Stefanic said. “It’s labor intensive to get this data.”

••• I woke at 5:30 a.m. to arrive at Craters of the Moon by 8.

“There’s no relieving yourself in the cave,” Stefanic told me by phone on the eve of our adventure.

“So don’t be drinking too much coffee on the drive up.”

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I took that advice seriously, skipping my usual fruit smoothie and instead munching an apple and nursing a small glass of orange juice during the two-hour drive to the park. Getting to Arco Tunnel would require a snowmobile ride and a snowshoe hike, so I wanted some liquid to hold me over, but not enough to make me miserable inside the cave.

Never before had I considered that the work of wildlife biologists would require such specific dietary decisions.

I pulled into the parking lot at Craters of the Moon just ahead of Jim Bromberg, the vegetation ecologist at the park and one of the others who would go into Arco Tunnel that day.

Stefanic led me into the NPS office building, an old house converted into work spaces. As we started to pack our gear for the day’s excursion, I met the other members of our crew. Arianne Millet is a Student Conservation Association intern at the park who works with Stefanic. Sandra Gladish is the park’s lead interpreter. “(Gladish) is fairly new,” Stefanic explained later. “I try to get her and other new interpreters into caves so they can speak to the public with first-hand knowledge of what’s going on.”

Last to arrive was Ross Winton, a regional wildlife biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

Each of us packed a backpack and gathered the gear we’d need for the day, including motorcycle helmets for the snowmobile ride and snowshoes and ski poles for the trek to the cave mouth. Inside the caves, we would need coveralls, helmets with headlamps, flashlights and batteries, knee pads and gloves, plus the gear used to document the bats and their behavior — digital cameras, markers and dry-erase boards and an instrument for taking temperature and humidity readings.

Stefanic pulled us into an office to study a map of Arco Tunnel and go over the plan for the day. In the first part of the tunnel I could simply observe the scientists, Stefanic told me. Later, when the cave split into smaller tunnels, I’d pair off with Millet to help her search for bats.

Reporter Alex Riggins has long been a fan of caves, spending many camping trips in his youth exploring the mud caves at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California. He’d had few interactions with bats before this project.

Todd Stefanic drives a snowmobile toward Arco Tunnel on Feb. 11.

••• Gladish and Millet took one snowmobile while I rode on the back of one Stefanic drove, which towed Bromberg and Winton on a Swede sled. Behind the passenger sled, we towed a sled full of gear.

The entire outing was almost cut short as Stefanic’s snowmobile began losing power just a few hundred yards from the office. After tinkering under the hood for several minutes, Stefanic fixed whatever ailed the machine and we were on our way.

About three miles to the southeast, we pulled off and cut the engines, then quickly prepared to snowshoe to the tunnel’s mouth. I had never used snowshoes before — something I didn’t tell Stefanic — but was able to keep up with the pace, hanging a little behind to photograph the others hiking.

We took a longer route than needed so Stefanic could swing by the entrance of Beauty Cave, a nearby lava tunnel where Bromberg and Gladish would explore and search for bats after finishing a short section of Arco Tunnel.

“Beauty and Arco were the same cave; when lava was flowing through there, it was all one tunnel,” Stefanic said later.

Part of the tunnel collapsed in the ensuing centuries, separating Arco Tunnel and Beauty Cave. But it’s important to monitor both on the same day to ensure that hibernating bats are not double-counted if they move from one to the other.

“That’s one thing that’s really interesting, is they wake up in the middle of the winter and fly around,” Stefanic said. “We don’t know exactly why. Do they need a drink? To defecate? To urinate? We don’t know, but we know bats will exit one cave and go to the other.”

After trekking past Boy Scout Cave and the brief stop at the

Beauty entrance, we made our final approach to Arco Tunnel. Someone suggested that whoever needed to relieve themselves should do so now. I seized the opportunity.

••• At 9:58 a.m., Stefanic radioed in our group size and location.

We ditched our snowshoes and climbed down icy rocks to a staging area created by a large, rocky overhang. We stripped off our backpacks and winter coats and pulled on coveralls — necessary for both protecting clothing and preventing the spread of white-nose syndrome, which can be transmitted on clothing and gear.

We strapped on knee pads, pulled on gloves and buckled our helmets as Stefanic unlocked a gate with wide metal bars. To keep humans from disturbing the bats, gates have been placed at some cave entrances in the park.

Stefanic said sarcastically that the gates are “bat friendly”; the creatures only tolerate the wide metal bars. He’s against putting gates at cave entrances, he said.

Later, Stefanic said he understands the gates help keep out graffiti artists and vandals, but they should be used as a last resort, if at all.

“People have watched cave entrances before and after a gate went in,” Stefanic explained.

“Before, the bats would show up and glide in. But after, they sometimes swarm around the entrance before going in. It changes the dynamic and could even effect their choice of cave. Maybe they go on to a different place. Maybe it closes off their favorite roost.”

The six of us crawled through the opening.

••• Stefanic had told us an important rule: Don’t talk inside the cave.

Especially don’t whisper, because

even a whisper creates a sound disturbing to the bats. I quickly remembered this rule because the talkative group immediately went silent.

Within 100 feet we left all daylight, and only our headlamps lit the path. Winton, Stefanic and Gladish immediately began searching for bats.

To the untrained eye, Arco Tunnel appears to end after only a short distance. We reached this seeming dead end without finding any bats. But the tunnel does go on, accessed by a belly crawl known as The Gate. One by one, we lay prone and scooted through. On the other side, the tunnel opened up enough for several people to walk shoulder to shoulder.

Past the first crawl, our group moved slowly with Winton searching the left side of the tunnel, Stefanic the ceiling and Gladish the right. Soon, we encountered our first bats, and Millet and Bromberg documented each one, a process that took several minutes.

First, Millet used a digital camera to photograph the bat or grouping of bats. She used the dry-erase board and markers to write what zone the bat was found in and how many had been found to that point.

Then Bromberg took temperature and humidity readings, which Millet recorded in a notebook.

Working this way, we slowly moved through zones two and three as a group, documenting more than a dozen Townsend’s bigeared bats hibernating on the walls and ceiling.

••• At the end of zone three is The Forum, a wide opening. Here, we found several more Townsend’s big-eared, then someone spotted something else. It looked the same to me, but Winton mouthed that it was indeed a different species.

We took something resembling a break, giving Winton an opportunity to search for insects. Without sunlight, the insects inside caves are an almost translucent white.

Winton used his mouth and a long hose to suction the insects and place them in vials.

It was also in The Forum where Bromberg demonstrated his specialty. He pointed my attention to the low ceiling where it looked as if red hair grew from a crack. I shrugged my shoulders and did my best to form a quizzical expression.

“Roots,” the vegetation ecologist mouthed.

It was time to split up. I was paired with Millet, the student intern.

••• I learned quickly that looking for bats is significantly more difficult than observing others looking for bats. The first zone Millet and I were assigned to search quickly split into two tunnels, so I was tasked with my very own. But searching every inch of the walls and ceiling took a toll on my neck.

Within five minutes my neck ached from constantly moving my light from the left wall, to the ceiling, to the right wall, and back.

It’s not good enough to simply walk down the center of the tunnel. If there was a ledge in the wall, I had to crawl under the overhang to check for bats. If there was an area where the ceiling jutted upward, I had to climb the best I could or strain to see the top. And ever since we left The Forum, the tunnel we were surveying got smaller and smaller. By the time I rejoined Millet, we were crouching in some parts, crawling in others.

We moved several hundred feet together, Millet checking the right half of the tunnel and me the left, at some points able to walk upright, but most of the time squatting or crawling. We found no bats until we reached a bend where the ceiling was higher. Searching the crevices, I finally spotted something fury tucked inside a deep nook in the ceiling.

Millet documented my find, and a few minutes later I made my next: two hibernating bats bunched together on a low wall.

As the tunnel narrowed, soon we were crawling on all fours. And it simply continued on and on, curving at times, with our headlights not strong enough to reach any sort of end or show us an area we might be able to stand. So we crawled, finding no bats for hundreds of yards.

Finally, we reached an area where the tunnel widened a bit, though it didn’t get taller. In the distance, we could see Winton’s and Stefanic’s lights approaching. We had apparently reached some predetermined meeting place I heard Stefanic and Millet talk about hours earlier.

I covered my headlamp so as not to blind my companion and stuck my tongue out the side of my mouth to express my exhaustion; Millet nodded in agreement. Then she pointed at me and pointed down, motioning for me to stay put. She pointed at herself then toward a small crack between the left wall and the ground.

Exhausted and thirsty, I was happy to wait while she explored.

Unable to stand and stretch, I lay on my back and turned off my headlamp, ushering in utter darkness. My body ached, and a check of my phone, which I was using as a camera, showed we had already been inside Arco Tunnel for four hours. I welcomed the pure darkness and peaceful quiet of the cave and drifted off to sleep.

I awoke moments later, looking to my right to again catch a glimpse of the lights from the two biologists. I rolled my tired body and crawled toward the two men.

Neither group had seen bats for several hundred yards in each direction, so we determined it was OK to speak quietly.

Please see ARCO, B4

B4 • Sunday, April 3, 2016

The 14 Bats Species of Idaho Silver-haired Bat‌

The silver-haired bat can be recognized by the silver tinge on its fur and small round ears. The slow-flying species’ scientific name (Lasionycteris noctivagans) means “night-wandering shaggy bat.”

The bats can be found nearly anywhere in the U.S. and typically roost in trees.

The bats are solitary and roost alone or in small groups, but females group together to form maternity colonies in tree cavities.

Mating takes place in early fall, but fertilization is delayed until the following spring.

When it’s time to give birth in early summer, the bat stands upright and holds her tail membrane forward to form a basket to catch the pup as it is born.

Big Brown Bat‌

COURTESY PHOTO

Big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) have a 14-inch wingspan with a “thumb” and bony “fingers” and can fly 40 mph. Their leathery wings, rounded ears and broad muzzles are black, but their bodies are covered with light to dark brown fur. Big brown bats can live 10 years or longer.

These bats consume vast amounts of insects — including some of the most damaging agricultural pests — increasing crop yields and decreasing pesticide use.

Spotted Bat‌

The spotted bat (Euderma maculatum) inhabits the canyons of Owyhee County during the summer and migrates for hibernation. It’s one of the few bats whose echolocation can be heard by humans.

Little Brown Bat‌

Western Pipistrelle‌

The Western pipistrelle (Pipestrellus hesperus), with an 8-inch wingspan the smallest bat in the U.S., is a species of special concern in Idaho.

The bat emerges before nightfall and stays active after sunrise. It lives 10 to 13 years.

until ovulation and fertilization take place in the spring.

A single pup is born in May, June or July and is ready to fly in one month.

area of Idaho from McCall to Lewiston and can live up to 18 years. It is a species of special concern in Idaho.

California Myotis‌

The long-eared bat (Myotis evotis) is mostly a forest dweller, whose habits and range are not well known in Idaho.

Yuma Myotis‌

Pallid Bat‌

The Yuma myotis (Myotis yumanensis) is more closely associated with water than most bats. In Idaho, the bat inhabits a wide range of territory, including dry deserts and moist forests.

The pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus) catches its prey on the ground or a few feet in the air. It eats large beetles, moths, crickets and small vertebrates. It usually gives birth to twins.

Hoary Bat

DREW NASH, TIMES-NEWS

The little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) — the most common bat in North America — weighs less than half an ounce (about as much as two crayons) and has a wingspan of 9 to 11 inches.

The bats consume mosquitoes and midges by knocking the insects out of the air with the tips of their wings and scooping them into their mouths.

Little brown bats are not territorial and may hibernate with tens of thousands of others. Mating season starts in August, and pups are born two months later. Pups can fly and catch insects at a month old.

Little brown bats live for six or seven years.

Long-legged Myotis‌ The long-legged myotis (Myotis volans) is the most common bat in the western U.S. It is active most of the night, covering great areas of terrain. It doesn’t roost in caves in the summer months.

The hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) usually gives birth to twins but can have up to four pups each year. The mother sometimes carries her young on her 16-inch wings before they can fly.

Western Smallfooted Myotis‌

STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS

The western small-footed myotis (Myotis ciliolabrum), with its tiny feet (1/3-inch long), is one of Idaho’s most common bats.

It has been found in a range of habitats but appears to be abundant in southern Idaho where it hibernates in crevices of lava tubes. It is one of the last bats to begin hibernation in winter.

Mating typically takes place before hibernation. Sperm is stored in the female’s body

Long-eared Bat‌

COURTESY PHOTO

Little is known about the behavior of the California myotis (Myotis californicus) in Idaho.

The small bat has been found in only three counties: Adams, Washington and Payette. But wildlife biologists think the bat is more widespread.

The California myotis is often confused with the Western small-footed myotis, but the cranium is round and not flattened like the smallfoot myotis. The upper fur is brownish chestnut and tends to have a yellowish cast.

The bat forages insects five to 10 feet off the ground using a slow, erratic flight pattern.

Mating takes place in the fall; ovulation and fertilization are delayed until spring.

Nursery colonies are small, usually around 25. Females have one pup each in early June.

Fringed Myotis‌ The fringed myotis (Myotis thysanodes) gets its name from the distinct fringe of short, wire-like hairs found on the membrane between its hind legs. It eats beetles on the ground, so its wings have high strength to resist puncture. It inhabits a small

Townsend’s Big-eared Bat‌

STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS

As one would suspect, the Townsend’s big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii) has very long ears — 1.5 inches long. To conserve body heat, the bat tucks its ears under its broad wings.

Its numbers had once appeared to be in decline, making it a species of special concern in Idaho. This is partly because these bats are extremely sensitive to human disturbance. They prefer habitats that are almost completely dark and can be found in mountain forests and dry deserts, away from people.

Recent bat counts show an upturn in the bat’s numbers in south-central Idaho.

—Mychel Matthews

Arco Continued from B3

STEPHEN REISS, TIMES-NEWS‌

Biologist Ross Winton finds a cave entrance March 10 north of Shoshone.

Fungus Continued from B2

The spelunkers enlisted to count bats and place temperature and humidity recorders are following scientists’ guidelines for minimizing the effects of their cave visits.

Bringing the grottoes in on the project was a no-brainer, Winton said, because the National Speleological Society has strict ethical requirements for its members. Its creed: Take nothing but pictures.

Leave nothing but footprints. Kill nothing but time.

Bat-to-bat transmission is the primary vector for the spread of P. destructans. But the fungus can be carried from cave to cave by humans. The spelunkers committed to decontamination standards upon leaving any cave to prevent the spread of the disease — even if its presence has not been confirmed.

By recording the condition of caves and the types of bats that live in each, biologists will form a baseline for comparison with the survival rate of bats in the East.

If a certain species is able to survive white-nose syndrome there, biologists will know where to focus protection efforts in Idaho.

Fi s h a n d G a m e ’s c ave

monitoring with grottoes is separate from Idaho’s acoustic bat monitoring program, Stefanic said, but the “information found will be folded into the national program.”

Winton gave the grotto a list of 20 caves chosen for the study.

Club members visited two caves — Pot of Gold and Giant Arch, both north of Shoshone — on their first outing in March.

They found only 20 bats in Pot of Gold but 200 in Giant Arch.

Eighty percent of those were Townsend’s big-eared bats; the rest were small brown bats.

“Fifteen years ago, there would have been few Townsend’s bats, and more small browns,” Frye said. “Today the populations have flipped.”

By monitoring caves as the disease spreads, biologists are forming ideas about how to protect bats in the West. The fungus shows up in a cave a year or two before the disease infects the bats hibernating there. That gives a little time to block access to the infested cave and possibly reroute the bats to safe caves.

Spelunkers could become an early warning system.

“We are the eyes and ears in the caves,” Anderson said.“We are the eyes and ears in the caves,” Anderson said.

Stefanic seemed surprised when I told him we found hibernating bats in the zone we searched — in previous years, bats typically hadn’t been found there.

Millet soon emerged and the four of us crawled toward — what, exactly? I wasn’t sure at that point, my mind turning increasingly to the two things my body wanted most: to drink water and stand up straight. Finally we reached an area where the tunnel ceiling rose, allowing me to stand for the first time in at least an hour.

“Glorious,” is the word I scribbled in my notebook.

Soon enough, we were crawling again, this time toward a dead end. Stefanic disappeared, later reappearing and telling us he had just found a new section of undocumented tunnel that required an extremely tight crawl to access.

After reaching the dead end without finding more bats, we crawled back the way we came.

At one point I saw Stefanic cross his arms across his chest like a mummy and roll, not unlike a child rolling down a grassy hill.

••• After crawling, then walking crouched over, we finally could walk upright. Sooner than I expected, we arrived back at The Forum and were able to walk upright the rest of the way until the crawl at The Gate. With exhaustion setting in, it took me twice as long to crawl under The Gate on the way out.

Back in the staging area a few minutes later, my mind could focus on only one thing: dehydration. I hadn’t had a drop of water to drink all day, and the bottle I brought with me I’d left back at the office.

Winton came to the rescue, offering me one of the two bottles he had in his backpack. I was thrilled to accept and gulped downed most of the bottle before we left the staging area.

At 3:09 p.m., Stefanic radioed in that we were all out of the cave and heading back soon.

We were supposed to disinfect our gear then and there, but the

ALEX RIGGINS, TIMES-NEWS‌

A crumpled map shows notes written by National Park Service wildlife biologist Todd Stefanic after monitoring bats Feb. 11 inside Arco Tunnel.

Clorox wipes and Formula 409 cleaner we’d brought along for the job were frozen. We’d have to disinfect when we got back to the office. Stefanic had planned for that contingency, though, telling us before we left to bring trash bags. We each stuffed our coveralls, helmets, gloves and knee pads into bags.

The snowshoe trek back to the snowmobiles, although supposedly shorter without the detour to Beauty Cave, seemed to have doubled in length. By the time we motored back to the office, it was

after 4 p.m. We wasted no time in shedding gear and heading our separate ways.

My knees were tender from crawling all day, even with the knee pads; my neck ached; my back was sore; my arms were noodles. And the next day I became aware of muscles in my core that I hadn’t known existed.

Exhausted, I rested in my truck for a moment, reflecting on the physical demands of these biologists’ jobs — and appreciating the type of person it takes to do this vital work.