White-nose syndrome treatment research has produced promising results that offer genuine hope for reversing the catastrophic bat population declines of the past two decades.
WNS treatment research represents some of the most welfare-positive conservation science being conducted for wild animals. Treatments that reduce fungal load on hibernating bats and improve survival rates directly reduce the suffering of individual bats who would otherwise wake repeatedly from torpor and die of starvation. The Pseudomonas biocontrol approach is particularly promising because it can be applied at scale to hibernacula housing thousands of bats. Ongoing clinical trial data from hibernacula with Pseudomonas treatment will determine whether this approach provides the breakthrough that bat populations need.