White-nose syndrome has killed over 90% of some North American bat species since 2006, and individual bats afflicted by the fungal disease experience disturbing sleep disruption, starvation, and death.
Individual bats dying from white-nose syndrome experience a prolonged and distressing death. Repeated arousal from hibernation during winter months burns critical fat reserves — each arousal event consumes 30 days worth of stored energy. Affected bats emerge during winter in cold weather, searching futilely for food before dying of exhaustion. The welfare dimensions of this epidemic are vast in scale and deeply individualized — each of millions of deaths is preceded by periods of distress and deprivation.