Artificial Test Cave

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Artificial Test Cave

Postby rebelfirefighter » Nov 8, 2010 6:35 am

Check out this article from Chattanooga.

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2010 ... sick-bats/
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby self-deleted_user » Nov 8, 2010 9:28 am

I don't quite understand...they know the fugicides would destroy a regular cave. Why would this make an artificial cave they could use them in, be useful?
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby wyandottecaver » Nov 8, 2010 10:23 am

Amy,

having an artificial site would allow you to treat the bats only without worrying about secondary effects. It would also allow you to use trial/error to find treatments that would work for both bats and be safe for cave life. IMHO such a thing simply does not exist. There may be substance X that cures bats of GD and doesnt harm native species (unlikely) but the problem, which everybody living off these research grants refuse to talk about, is distribution. *if* you could save a few colonies here and there, youd still have a genetic bottleneck. jacked up bats are better than no bats I guess.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby self-deleted_user » Nov 8, 2010 12:04 pm

Oh ok so the idea is attract bats to artificial cave and treat a whole bunch there to protect...however many are attracted to said cave. Yes?

*shrugs* I guess I'm still the "let nature take it's course" type. It kinda tends to do that anyway however much we try to stop it. Don't get me wrong I love bats and don't want to see them die, there's just only so much you can do to fight Mother Nature.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby Squirrel Girl » Nov 8, 2010 1:12 pm

Sungura wrote:Oh ok so the idea is attract bats to artificial cave and treat a whole bunch there to protect...however many are attracted to said cave. Yes?

*shrugs* I guess I'm still the "let nature take it's course" type. It kinda tends to do that anyway however much we try to stop it. Don't get me wrong I love bats and don't want to see them die, there's just only so much you can do to fight Mother Nature.


You mean like AIDS, small pox, syphillis, polio and the like?
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby self-deleted_user » Nov 8, 2010 2:00 pm

Squirrel Girl wrote:
Sungura wrote:Oh ok so the idea is attract bats to artificial cave and treat a whole bunch there to protect...however many are attracted to said cave. Yes?

*shrugs* I guess I'm still the "let nature take it's course" type. It kinda tends to do that anyway however much we try to stop it. Don't get me wrong I love bats and don't want to see them die, there's just only so much you can do to fight Mother Nature.


You mean like AIDS, small pox, syphillis, polio and the like?
Red herring.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby Squirrel Girl » Nov 8, 2010 2:23 pm

Sungura wrote:
Squirrel Girl wrote:
Sungura wrote:Oh ok so the idea is attract bats to artificial cave and treat a whole bunch there to protect...however many are attracted to said cave. Yes?

*shrugs* I guess I'm still the "let nature take it's course" type. It kinda tends to do that anyway however much we try to stop it. Don't get me wrong I love bats and don't want to see them die, there's just only so much you can do to fight Mother Nature.


You mean like AIDS, small pox, syphillis, polio and the like?
Red herring.

Why?
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby NZcaver » Nov 8, 2010 3:36 pm

Maybe because those are people diseases? :question:

I'm another person who strongly suspects nature will take its course with WNS, regardless of what we humans do or don't do.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby Squirrel Girl » Nov 8, 2010 4:30 pm

NZcaver wrote:Maybe because those are people diseases? :question:

I'm another person who strongly suspects nature will take its course with WNS, regardless of what we humans do or don't do.


In the end, I think all the bats will die and then we can all go caving. :sadbanana: (Hopefully a few resistant bats will survive and repopulate.)

But on the other hand, it might work. The damage to the US's ecology is going to be pretty severe, and certainly worth investigating, IMHO.

As far as the other comment, why would people disease = red herring?
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby wyandottecaver » Nov 8, 2010 8:45 pm

Not that I agree with the Red Herring comment, but there is a big difference. With all the human diseases there is at least a reasonable potential to disribute and administer treatment to the bulk of the at risk population. In the case of WNS, from a practical standpoint we can either try to kill known infected colonies or sit back and watch.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby self-deleted_user » Nov 9, 2010 12:56 am

A "Red Herring" is a term for a logical fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention. We're not talking about humans, about viruses, about individually given vaccinations. We're talking about bats, a fungus, and spraying fungicides.

I never said it wasn't worth investigating. I'm not saying we shouldn't brainstorm and try things. I'm saying, I have yet to see any practical method to control this and I fail to see how a fake cave helps thousands of bats...spraying fugicides doesn't exactly make them immune so the issue still arises. And bringing up that list of diseases has nothing to do with the issue at hand, hence, red herring.

And yes, some bats will be resistant and repopulate! That's the wonder of mother nature and evolution. There was a topic on the uk cave forum about WNS and from what I gathered, back in the 1960's or so they had a fungus (there, europe? i forget details) but basically the tl;dr I gathered was it ran it's course, lots of bats died, some didn't, those reproduced making bats resistant, and populations re-flourished. :)
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby ArCaver » Nov 9, 2010 3:24 am

Sungura wrote:A "Red Herring" is a term for a logical fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention. We're not talking about humans, about viruses, about individually given vaccinations. We're talking about bats, a fungus, and spraying fungicides.

I never said it wasn't worth investigating. I'm not saying we shouldn't brainstorm and try things. I'm saying, I have yet to see any practical method to control this and I fail to see how a fake cave helps thousands of bats...spraying fugicides doesn't exactly make them immune so the issue still arises. And bringing up that list of diseases has nothing to do with the issue at hand, hence, red herring.

And yes, some bats will be resistant and repopulate! That's the wonder of mother nature and evolution. There was a topic on the uk cave forum about WNS and from what I gathered, back in the 1960's or so they had a fungus (there, europe? i forget details) but basically the tl;dr I gathered was it ran it's course, lots of bats died, some didn't, those reproduced making bats resistant, and populations re-flourished. :)

Do you have a link to that UK cave forum thread?
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby NZcaver » Nov 9, 2010 4:16 am

ArCaver wrote:Do you have a link to that UK cave forum thread?

I think this is the topic on the UK caving forum.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby Squirrel Girl » Nov 9, 2010 5:05 am

Sungura wrote:A "Red Herring" is a term for a logical fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention. We're not talking about humans, about viruses, about individually given vaccinations. We're talking about bats, a fungus, and spraying fungicides.

I never said it wasn't worth investigating. I'm not saying we shouldn't brainstorm and try things. I'm saying, I have yet to see any practical method to control this and I fail to see how a fake cave helps thousands of bats...spraying fugicides doesn't exactly make them immune so the issue still arises. And bringing up that list of diseases has nothing to do with the issue at hand, hence, red herring.

And yes, some bats will be resistant and repopulate! That's the wonder of mother nature and evolution. There was a topic on the uk cave forum about WNS and from what I gathered, back in the 1960's or so they had a fungus (there, europe? i forget details) but basically the tl;dr I gathered was it ran it's course, lots of bats died, some didn't, those reproduced making bats resistant, and populations re-flourished. :)


I know what a "red herring" is, I just didn't quite follow your logic. Of course we're not talking about humans. That's what analogies are; imperfect examples that have some parallels. I was trying to get clarification as to what your point was. I don't think my point was a red herring, but less than the best analogy because I didn't understand your point.

How about saying that people shouldn't spray for mosquitos? Sure in place like Iowa (where I grew up) or Virginia (where I live now), you could argue that it isn't worth the environmental harm. But in places that have malaria and/or dengue, it would be a valuable disease fighting technique.

If I take a very long term view, *maybe* the bats will all die off and we can't do anything but hope some are resistant. On the other hand, if you or someone close to you, dies of West Nile because there weren't any bats to keep the mosquitos down, you might wish we were a little more pro-active about combating WNS.
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Re: Artificial Test Cave

Postby wyandottecaver » Nov 9, 2010 2:05 pm

"And yes, some bats will be resistant and repopulate! That's the wonder of mother nature and evolution."

Funny thing that. everybody *assumes* there will be some resistance. Maybe there will. We have noticed certain species that seem less affected. We have yet to have either empirical or antecdotal evidence of individual resistance to WNS beyond simple body size. So far as the UK and Europe experiance, yes, that might be what North Americal looks like too...eventually. Generally their species are slightly larger, which correlates with our own experiance here that larger bats on average, do better.
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