A mysterious fatal disease that has killed bats in New England has spread to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Fish and Wildlife reported.

The organization further said hundreds of bats were found to be dying in two caves in Morris County which was their home during winter hibernation. The bad news is that officials have no idea what is the cause of so many deaths.

“You can’t start treating something when you don’t know the cause of it,” Mick Valent, the division’s principal zoologist said.

The dead bats displayed a white fungus around their muzzles, a sign of what is called white-nose syndrome. However, biologists don’t know whether the fungus caused the deaths. For now, the only thing they know is the fact that the fungus and the deaths occur concurrently.

White-nose syndrome was first spotted in the winter of 2006-2007 in New York. Then, it spread to Massachusetts, Vermont and Connecticut.

“Nobody, at the time, knew what it was. They were just seeing unusual activity by bats, resulting in a lot of the bats dying. Nobody is completely sure what is causing this,” Valent said.

Experts fear that the phenomenon could spread to other populations of bats as bats are highly migratory and fly in tight clusters of up to 200 or 300.
Officials in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania have asked people who see dead of day-flying bats during cold weather to report it.