Prevention & Control

Many questions about WNS remain unanswered and there are currently no effective or practical treatment options available. Some states have restricted access to caves and mines to prevent humans from spreading the fungus from cave to cave. There is also some scientific evidence that bat mortality rates are lower in hibernacula that have less human disturbance (i.e. where humans are excluded). At present, the best and most practical WNS control strategy is preventing humans from spreading the disease to uninfected areas (by staying out of unsupervised caves and abandoned mines), and conserving infected populations by minimizing human disturbance of the caves and mines in which they hibernate.