Dedicating equipment to one cave - WNS

[NZcaver]

Here's the Official Wisconsin DNR Approved Light Setup:

Primary light: Whatever you buy and dedicate to ONE and ONLY ONE cave. Helmet is not required, but if you use one, it must be dedicated to ONE and ONLY ONE cave.

If you want to go to another cave you need to buy another light, helmet, boots, coveralls, gloves... yeah, EVERYTHING!... right down to a dedicated set of VERT GEAR for each and every Vertical cave you wish to visit.

Secondary light: That guy over there

Third light source: ...huh?

Sorry to spread WNS into this thread, but I didn't decontaminate before I logged on. And no, I'm not kidding.

[Jon]

Is that approved or mandated? I made an alum bat box for my Sten and SEALED it with the super tough, super stout grey silicon. I can and do completely saturate and submerge my lid and light(after general cleaning) with 409 anti bacterial with the exception of the bat to light connection. I do the connector separately and carefully to prevent corrosion. I have done this from day one of hearing of WNS and 409 for EVERYTHING I take underground. I can detect no degradation of the webbing for the suspension system nor the chinstrap. If there is any, the forces on them would be enough to kill me anyway. Now vertical gear is another story, no way would I risk load induced failure due to invisible degradation. It is ridiculous to think that approved decon methods can't be used on non high load equipment. Since it can't be proven that WNS is spread by cavers or gear to any measurable degree, it is absurd to put such a financial burden on cavers. Besides it is totally unenforceable and therefore nothing more than a PR smokescreen. PROVE that that piece of equipment was in another cave. I mean just how different does one Ecrin Roc look from another? What are the Feds or states going to do hire 16,000 WNS Agents to sit outside of caves and brand equipment? Somewhere else someone posted why not hikers and hunters ( please don't jump my case I have been or am both), after all if a bat flies outside a cave, drops a WNS spore , some hiker, hunter, birder or mountain biker picks it up and transports it to another location where he or she drops it, and a mouse or the wind picks it up and transfers it to a non WNS infected cave miles away. Now I'm no micro biologist, but I'd be willing to bet that a caver who really follows the decon guidelines is less likely to spread WNS than a blissfully ignorant average Joe enjoying the outdoors. Gee Fred look at that, wonder what's down there? Maybe some neat Indian thing or lost gold. Cavers are a small group of outdoors people. Don't sit back and take knee jerk, feel good, non scientific solutions without a fight. Elected officials respond to vocal groups no matter how small IF you can find a way to get it in the news. Look at the gay and lesbian community, something like 3 to 5% of the population and just look at the press the don't ask don't tell gets. Look at the elected officials on both sides falling all over themselves trying not to offend them. It's time to stand up to guano policies. Write , call , stage a quirky protest anything to draw GOOD attention to the problem or pretty soon All of the states will have "No caves to speak in"

[John Lovaas]

Jon-

I chose not to reply to Nuke's comments last night because- well, because I was having a nice evening, learning to play Greensleeves on guitar.

Nuke may not have been kidding- but he is mistaken.

Thanks to the efforts of a whole bunch of people(including Wisconsin's cave diving community and Wisconsin cave owners) significant changes have been, and are continuing to be made, in the new WNS regulations. Did any Wisconsin residents who are A) cavers and B) are NOT cave divers or cave owners speak out publicly, or contribute financially to our legal efforts? I can think of one person at the moment. One.

There are only two caves in Wisconsin where Nuke's statement would now hold true- and these are the only two caves where the DNR has removed all bats- including hibernating bats- to "control the spread of the fungus". In a case of brutally awesome irony, one of the Wisconsin Speleological Society's conservation chairmen is working as a DNR contractor to remove the bats- including hibernating bats- from one of those caves. "...Protecting caves and their natural contents..." is subject to some interpretation, I reckon.

The management plans for those two caves were accepted by the cavers/recreational miners who frequent those two caves- directors and members of the WSS- and by the managers of those caves before the WIDNR had even received Natural Resources Board approval for any kind of WNS management.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for pretty much anything, I guess.

And our work is not done yet. In a little more than a month, the amended WIDNR WNS rules go to newly appointed Environment/Natural Resources committees for review. These committees will be appointed by two Republicans- who are brothers!- who will serve as the new Speaker of the House and Senate President. They will be serving under a new Republican governor, whose administration's first order of business will be to dismantle the Wisconsin DNR.

The Minnesota Speleological Survey's Save The Bats Fund got into this fray because of WIDNR's absurd concept of removing bats from caves so that people could continue to use caves. We've also fought hard to get WIDNR to address their rewrite/reinterpretation of existing USFWS decontamination protocols. While we have have made great gains in getting WIDNR to rethink and reshape their original proposals; we won't be done until the State Legislature goes through these rules.

We did not have the time, energy, or legal firepower to address the property rights issues involved in inspecting people's personal and private property for the presence of a spore of a fungus- and to possibly hold that property owner liable for the spread of WNS in the State of Wisconsin, without there being one shred of evidence to demonstrate that is is not only likely, but even possible.

I'll leave that to a new legislature and administration that has no love for the WIDNR.

Oh- my helmet light? I've got a Petzl Duo w/14 LED Petzl insert. I replaced the halogen bulb with a generic 3 LED screw-in bulb- it gives out enough light for close-up work or sketching in small passage, and I imagine it could run for a week... I also have a Tikka(well soaked with WD40) on the helmet, as well as a 1 LED 'watch battery' light I found at a Wisconsin cave a few years ago.

There we go- back on topic.

http://mss-caving.org/Savethebats.htm

[Jon]

Imagine that some Feds get the idea that one cave one light, one cave one lid, and one cave one pair of pants boots etc. Say a person did do that , what happens when they unseal the ziplock bag at home to change batteries or wash the pants. Cross contamination. Many might feel that they are doing enough just by not wearing the same stuff place to place .... no need to decon too. Problem with weird little laws in small places, they often become weirder laws in bigger places.

What are they doing with the bats they took out of hibernation? Any of them think about the stress and trauma they put them through? Bet we wont get a report showing the mortality rate of this fiasco. Actually if they have a chamber to keep them in I bet it's smaller than the cave so the airborne spore concentration levels may be higher.

All this kind of stuff does is makes me want to live in a cave with occasional forays to the surface for food.

[John Lovaas]

Imagine that some Feds get the idea that one cave one light, one cave one lid, and one cave one pair of pants boots etc.

Well, so far, the USFWS has been far more thoughtful than that. And current, soon to be published, and ongoing research will likely support the more thoughtful path.

Problem with weird little laws in small places, they often become weirder laws in bigger places.

In this case, no. Wisconsin's Natural Resources has powers unrivalled not only in other states, but at the Federal level as well. While those powers have been used for good(Wisconsin has addressed atrazine pollution in ways the 'Feds' have been unable to do), those powers can have negative impacts.

What are they doing with the bats they took out of hibernation? Any of them think about the stress and trauma they put them through? Bet we wont get a report showing the mortality rate of this fiasco. Actually if they have a chamber to keep them in I bet it's smaller than the cave so the airborne spore concentration levels may be higher.

There is an ongoing FOIA request for all of that information. Now that Wisconsin's cave bats have state Threatened status, DNR activities involving those species are now exempt from the state FOIA.

And speaking of airborne spores- Dr. David Blehert of the USGS WIldlife Lab gave a brief presentation at the Natural Resources Board meeting last week. He discussed some of the findings in an upcoming paper regarding modes of transmission and infection. One noteworthy item, shown on a chart in the presentation, was that none of the bats in the study became infected via aerosol transmission. During a break, I asked Dr. Blehert about this, as well as his discussion of aerosol transmission last January at the WIDNR informational meeting. He told me that their information about aerosol transmission last January was incorrect; in fact, they had no bats infected with WNS via aerosol means.

So, if Q= can bats be infected with the fungus via aerosol means, then A= research to date has not demonstrated aerosol transmission.

Dr. Blehert said that ventilation in the 'bat coolers' might have acted as a kind of air filter, so they are going to design an experiment to eliminate that variable.

Back to the topic- still have the same lights on my helmet... ;-)

[BrianC]

And our work is not done yet. In a little more than a month, the amended WIDNR WNS rules go to newly appointed Environment/Natural Resources committees for review. These committees will be appointed by two Republicans- who are brothers!- who will serve as the new Speaker of the House and Senate President. They will be serving under a new Republican governor, whose administration's first order of business will be to dismantle the Wisconsin DNR.

Do you think that they will dismantle, or require facts before creating policy?

[jsniffin]

What are the Feds or states going to do hire 16,000 WNS Agents to sit outside of caves and brand equipment?

I could see them doing something like that.