Bats! Just mentioning them can cause irrational fear in many people. We believe the old wives tales about them getting into our hair. If we see one, our first impulse is to grab a broom and swat at it. We fail to see the good they do. If some disease wiped them from the face of the earth, most people wouldn't care; they wouldn't, but they should.

Bats are mostly harmless and they do a lot of good for other wildlife and us humans. They eat insects by the tons and spare people having to deal with backyard pests and farmers from the expense of insect-inflicted crop damage. In short, bats are our friends, and they could be in serious trouble.

A mysterious affliction known as "white-nose syndrome" has killed thousands of cave bats in New York and New England. No cases have yet been discovered in Pennsylvania, but it's getting very close. It's been discovered in a cave just 11 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Since being discovered near Albany, N.Y., the disorder has been spread to Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont. Afflicted bats collect a white fungus on their muzzles during hibernation, thus the name given the affliction. Researchers believe that this fungus grows best in the cold, clammy caves and mines bats use as their hibernation sites. Their deaths appear to be from starvation. Little else is known about the disorder.

"We still don't know what causes WNS, where it came from, or if we can stop its spread to other states," said Carl Roe, PGC Executive Director. "But the Game Commission is committed to finding answers that will help wildlife managers better understand WNS and, hopefully find ways to limit it's impact."

Wildlife officials say that white-nose syndrome is as mysterious now as it was when it was first discovered. Despite the coordinated efforts of more than two dozen wildlife agencies, universities, and institutions, WNS continues to baffle researchers who are trying to unravel the mystery. There are plenty of clues but few conclusions.

Pennsylvania is in the unenviable position of being one of the next likely destinations for this disorder. Game commission biologists consequently have been concentrating on monitoring summer roosts and maternity colonies and developing a strategy to assess the condition of bats heading into hibernation this fall.

So far this summer, commission biologists have checked the state's largest bat maternity colonies for both juvenile and adult mortality. Agency employees have trapped bats with mist nets at several locations throughout the state to check bats for abnormalities. The field work turned up no abnormal mortality. However, small white spots were found on the wings of some bats. Exactly what the spots were has not been determined.

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who think the Pennsylvania Game Commission could find more important things to do with its limited money and manpower than to waste it trying to save a few bats. I'm not one of them. Sure I care about deer and deer management, but the commission is responsible for all of Pennsylvania's wildlife, and in my world, biodiversity is not a dirty word.

n Don Steese of Northumberland writes a weekly outdoors column for The Daily Item. E-mail comments to jdsteese@yahoo.com.