Apologies for posting here and on the Speleology section, but this falls into both categories and we need this read by all who are qualified.
When I was an active cave diver, I used to count the critters I saw during my dives - fishes, amphibians, troglobitic crustaceans, snails, you name it, if it was alive, alive-o, I counted it. Oh, I neglected to make counts on my first dives because I was then in a learning mode and sometimes it was all I could do just to stay alive myself. And there might be a dive or two in there when I didn’t make any counts at all because, well, they didn’t really qualify as Abe Davis dives, if you know what I mean, but I have a lot of numbers in an Excel file that I have been sitting on over these last two decades.
Now it turns out that these numbers have value in documenting Florida’s cave biota for the purpose of establishing baseline information to be used in groundwater and cave management. For example, if no cave crayfish have ever been reported from a given cave, it is difficult to make a case for establishing a motive for protecting the water quality in that cave. Yep. You read me right. Get this: The Suwannee River Water Management District Governing Board is claiming that, because no one ever reported cave crayfish in Manatee Spring Cave, such organisms must NEVER have existed there, and therefore there is no good reason to protect the water quality for fish and wildlife sustenance in that cave now! Unbelievable! This is the kind of leadership we currently have in some high places.
Annette Long is fighting that good fight through her position as President of Save Our Suwannee, but she needs some help. She needs that data of mine reduced into a useful report. Better yet, she needs that data published in the scientific literature, or even the gray literature.
Unfortunately, I am so swamped with my 2008 NSS Convention duties and my work on other speleo-jobs, plus life itself, that I simply cannot take the time out now to work the data up into a useful format. HELP!
What is needed is someone familiar with Excel to take my rather large spreadsheet and figure out how to best tabulate and summarize it for conservation ends. This person or persons should be familiar with Excel and hopefully also familiar with Lotus 1-2-3. I created the original spreadsheet in Lotus 1-2-3 and then imported it into Excel, and the translation wasn’t perfect. This person should also have a scientific background and a desire to publish. Lastly, this person must have the time to do this work, and very soon.
I can promise that you won’t receive one thin dime for this work, that you will wind up with at least one publishable scientific paper, and that you will make a positive difference in the conservation of Florida’s immense but diminishing cave resources. Of course, I will want to co-author all papers that derive from my database, but if you can lead the way then you will be the primary author.
Please contact me, Buford Pruitt, ASAP at bpruitt5@cox.net or 352-271-3203.