MONROE COUNTY, W.Va. (WCHS) — Bats may get a bad rap, but they are an important part of our ecosystem as pollinators and they help keep the insect population in check.

Unfortunately, their numbers have really fallen this century due to a disease known as white-nose syndrome.

Recently, Wild Appalachia made a trek with wildlife biologists to a cave down in Monroe County to see the bright way they're trying to protect bats.

It may not be visible to the naked eye, but a deadly pathogen to bats lives in the cave.

That's why West Virginia Division of Natural Resources biologists are trying a new light treatment to kill as much of the fungus as they possibly can.

"We actually have a whole room sanitizer - it's called an obelisk - and it bakes the surface with a UVC light and a 254-nanometer wavelength, and at a set level of exposure that's enough to kill the fungus. It's been used in a research setting and in a trial capacity elsewhere. Brooke Maslo and her lab at Rutgers University really pioneered that. I think I'm correct in saying that we are going to be the first state agency to roll out regular treatments for white-nose syndrome in a natural hibernaculum", said Alex Silvas, Endangered Species Coordinator and Bat Biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources.

The light is so bright that sunglasses are a requirement, and you still need to look away.

Silvas said just reducing this fungus should go a long way in helping the cave-dwellers.

"If we can culture it pretreatment and not posttreatment, that would indicate that our treatments are a success," Silvas said. "Then hopefully, that reduces the fungal load that the bats pick up, which will reduce the severity of infection and thus make it more likely the bats will survive white-nose syndrome."

It also doesn't harm other critters you may find down below.

"We have a lot of unique cave organisms that are adapted to feeding on the bat guano. There are some cave crickets and some cave spiders and millipedes and things, and we're not in a particularly wet area. There are cave isopods here as well. They're adapted to those unique environments, so their genes become potentially very biologically valuable for developing, for example, new antibiotics," Silvas said.

After treatment, it's all about making sure there's no cross-contamination.

"We wear these Tyvek suits to avoid bringing out too much cave dirt and fungus," Silvas said. "We peel these layers off when we get out of the cave but everything that we carry in has to be decontaminated for white-nose syndrome."

It's a lot of heavy lifting in a rough and slippery environment, but Silvas said the hope is to take this treatment to other caves in the future.

"Teams at the West Virginia Division Natural of Resources, Rick Doyle and Brian Gordon, who work with endangered species as well. It's all a team effort. No one does any of this stuff alone, from carrying the stuff into the cave to planning out the details and building the equipment. Every step of the way, there are other people supporting it."

White-nose syndrome broke onto the scene in 2006 in New York and has spread across the majority of the country since.

"White-nose syndrome is an invasive fungal pathogen that's caused the death of millions of bats across North America and reduced populations of some of our local West Virginia species by 95% to 99%. The majority of some of our species have been wiped out, and so they're now exceedingly rare," Silvas said. "That's resulted in the federal listing as an endangered species for the northern long-eared bat, which used to be a relatively common bat. It's really satisfying to finally be able to do something to fight white-nose syndrome in a practical way in the cave environment."