“It’s shocking and disturbing to see this disease reach Washington and indeed the western United States,” said Mollie Matteson, senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It certainly opens a new chapter in the spread of a disease that has already killed millions of bats. This is a wake-up call for land managers in the West to do what’s needed to keep white-nose syndrome from spinning out of control before it’s too late.”

A frequent and controversial response is to close caves to public access, on the assumption that people are spreading spores of the fungus from cave to cave. While there is evidence that the initial cases of white-nose syndrome may have derived from fungus spores brought from European ships to American ports, the cave-closure policy has been hotly debated.

“Some areas in the East have closed caves on public land,” Servheen said. “But in the West, we are working with the caving community as partners in this process. We see them as part of the solution, not the problem. They provide trip reports of bats when they see them and enforce clean-caving protocols.”