Mammoth Cave prepares for inevitability of ailment that is killing bats by the millions

Officials at Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, the world's longest known cave system, have feared the spread of white-nose syndrome among U.S. bat populations, and tensions are high as the disease moves closer. The syndrome, which has killed more than 1 million bats since 2006, was recently found in Dunbar Cave near Clarksville, Tenn., 80 miles southwest of Mammoth Cave National Park in Southern Kentucky, Laurel Wilson of the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

Traci Hemberger, a wildlife biologist for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, said white-nose syndrome reaching the Bluegrass State is inevitable now, especially since it has been found in Tennessee. "We've been on alert for a number of years," Mammoth Cave public information officer Vickie Carson told Wilson. Park officials are "drafting a response plan that will help keep the disease from arriving as well as outline how to minimize the spread if it does make an appearance," Wilson writes. (Read more) You can see our most recent white-nose item here.