Why bat scientists are socially distancing from their subjects
Biologist Winifred Frick argues for precautions to shield North American bats from the coronavirus
![Indiana bats](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/101620_jo_bat_feat.jpg?fit=1028%2C579&ssl=1)
Scientists are keeping their distance from North American bats, such as Indiana bats (Myotis sodalis), to avoid spreading the coronavirus to the animals.
Ryan Hagerty, USFWS
There’s nothing Winifred Frick likes better than crawling through guano-filled caves and coming face-to-face with bats. As chief scientist of Bat Conservation International, she is on a mission to promote understanding of bats and protect imperiled species from extinction.
For months, though, Frick has avoided research that would put her within spitting distance of bats. Her only projects to persist through the pandemic have been conducted from afar, like using acoustic monitors to eavesdrop on the animals’ squeaks and swooshes. In an era of COVID-19, that “hands-off” approach and other precautions are crucial to protect both bats and people, Frick, a biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and over two dozen other scientists argue online September 3 in PLOS Pathogens.
Why the call to action? SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, likely originated in bats in China (SN: 3/26/20). But neither it nor other coronaviruses belonging to the same genus — Betacoronavirus — have been detected in the more than 40 bat species in North America, although the animals do harbor other types of coronaviruses. Scientists are not worried about catching SARS-CoV-2 from these bats. They’re afraid of giving it to the bats — not an impossibility, the authors argue, given that the United States leads the world in infections, with nearly 8 million as of October 16.
“We can’t tell bats to socially distance,” Frick says. “We want to reduce the chance that there’s any pathogen transfer across animals, full stop.” The goal is to prevent viral “spillover.”
![Biologist Winifred Frick](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/101620_jo_bat_inline_680.jpg?resize=675%2C450&ssl=1)
Human-to-bat transmission isn’t an unheard-of scenario. People are likely to blame for introducing Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the fungus that causes white nose syndrome, to North American bats. The disease has killed millions of bats throughout the United States and Canada since it was first detected in 2006 (SN: 3/31/16).
It’s unknown if bats are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, or if the virus would make them sick — bats rarely become ill from the viruses they carry (SN: 2/12/20). But infected bats might spread the virus back to humans, the authors say.