Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Displeased chirps rang out through the air at Sylvan Lake State Park on a recent June evening just after sundown.
Little brown bats had left the suitcase-sized wooden boxes in which they live in search of dinner as they do every night, but instead found themselves captured in a mist net strung up by researchers. The tiny animals writhed and bared their teeth as they bit the fingers of the crew members inspecting them for signs of white-nose syndrome.
But that night, none of the 25 bats measured, weighed and swabbed appeared to carry the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which causes white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has killed millions of bats across the United States.
Four years after the initial discovery of the fungus in Colorado — and three years after the first case of the resulting white-nose syndrome — it remains unclear what the impacts of the devastating fungal pathogen will be in the state.
Dan Neubaum, species conservation program manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, leads the state’s bat conservation efforts and cited white-nose syndrome as the agency’s top concern.
Produced by Lucas Boland
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Displeased chirps rang out through the air at Sylvan Lake State Park on a recent June evening just after sundown.
Little brown bats had left the suitcase-sized wooden boxes in which they live in search of dinner as they do every night, but instead found themselves captured in a mist net strung up by researchers. The tiny animals writhed and bared their teeth as they bit the fingers of the crew members inspecting them for signs of white-nose syndrome.
But that night, none of the 25 bats measured, weighed and swabbed appeared to carry the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which causes white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has killed millions of bats across the United States.
Four years after the initial discovery of the fungus in Colorado — and three years after the first case of the resulting white-nose syndrome — it remains unclear what the impacts of the devastating fungal pathogen will be in the state.
Dan Neubaum, species conservation program manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, leads the state’s bat conservation efforts and cited white-nose syndrome as the agency’s top concern.
Produced by Lucas Boland
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: bit.ly/3zeF6Ch
------------------------------------------------------
Follow Rocky Mountain PBS on our other platforms, too.
• Newsletter: rmpbs.org/newsletters
• Facebook: facebook.com/rmpbs
• Instagram: instagram.com/rmpbs
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/rocky-mountain-pbs
