Almost all of the brown bats that hibernated in a Dorset cave last winter and were tagged with radio chips stayed there until spring, according to a new study.

The news means the bats weren't affected by white nose syndrome, which is a disease that causes bats to wake up from hibernation, fly into the cold winter, and most likely die.

"If we've seen that many bats pass through at the correct time, and behave what we would call normally, that's really exciting," said Alyssa Bennett, a biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife who helped conduct the study.

Bats that were studied in the Aeolus cave in Dorset were little brown bats, once considered one of the most common bat species in Vermont. During its peak, the white nose would cause up to 90 percent of the species to wake up too early, according to Bennett.

This year, as many as 96 percent of them stayed inside until spring.

The disease has spread out of N.Y. into Vermont and has since moved into other locations of the U.S. and Canada.

There are at least two known locations in N.Y. that have seen similar results, but researchers haven't noticed it in other states affected by white nose, according to Jeremy Coleman, the white nose coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Studies are underway to figure out why the bats are surviving.

Different summer studies are currently taking place in the Champlain Valley have found little brown bat maternity colonies that are thriving and the population is growing faster than it is declining, according to Bennett.

Approximately 442 bats were tagged with chips in the fall. Then electric readers were installed at a point in the Aeolus cave in Dorset where the bats' passage would be recorded, along with the time.

Researchers were looking to determine how many bats would leave the cave in the winter, and most likely die, compared to those who wait until spring to leave the cave.

Exactly 192 bats were recorded leaving the cave, all but eight during spring, according to Bennett.

Bennett worked on the study with Antioch University New England graduate student Morgan Ingalls.

The tag reading equipment didn't turn on until the bats went into hibernation however. There is a chance that some other bats died deeper in the cave, but that is not typical behavior of little brown bats, according to Bennett.

While the bats that were tagged were captured near the opening of the Aeolus cave, researchers believe a number of those bats could have hibernated in other locations and wouldn't have been recorded by the equipment.

Even if all those bats died, the low-end 43 percent survival rate is still an improvement over the early winter survival rates for the brown bats, according to Bennett.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it will provide a $60,000 grant so that the bats in the Aeolus cave can be studied this winter.

Coleman and Bennett believe that the little brown bats' recovery from white nose will follow its outbreak, but it could take decades before they reach their pre-white nose population levels, according to

"I don't know why these bats are still there, if it's a resilience that they have for some reason, whether it's behavioral or genetic or they are in some ways just being lucky," Coleman said. "I'm beginning to be a believer despite my pessimism that we are seeing something that is real and hopefully inheritable."

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