2011 Fern Cave Bat Hibernaculum WNS check results

[Steve Pitts]

As of March 2011, gray bats examined in Alabama's Fern Cave hibernaculum area show no signs of WNS. A small segment of the colony including an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 bats were visually checked. There were no dead bats seen in the cave or outside, and no bats seen flying in the entrance area. The total gray bat population in Fern Cave is estimated to be about 1,000,000, making the cave the largest gray bat hibernaculum in the world. Fern Cave has also been one of the most popular caves in TAG for over 30 years, drawing visitors from all over the US.

[Anonymous_Coward]

Always nice to hear some good news in this particular forum. Thanks Steve for the update and the management.

[BrianC]

Certainly good news Steve. Probably out of the woods for this year at this point. Keep your fingers crossed.

[PYoungbaer]

Very good news, Steve. Thanks, too, for pointing out the 30 - year history of an endangered bat species thriving along with active caving.

[Leitmotiv]

Thriving with cavers who may be a threat by spreading the spores!

Edit : Yes, that is sarcasm.

[Phil Winkler]

Steve,

Is this the Morgue entrance to Fern?

[Pippin]

Phil: yes, the Morgue. That's the only section of the cave where gray bats roost. Some background about Fern Cave, the gray bats that hibernate there, and the key role cavers have played in protecting them. Cavers discovered a cave very close to Fern with lots and lots of bats in 1969 and named the new cave the Morgue (it was connected to the Fern system later). While exploring the new find, Huntsville caver Jim Johnston saw a banded bat and collected the tag. Jim reported the tag information and soon heard from Merlin Tuttle, who then spent a good bit of time researching the bats in the cave. After Huntsville cavers learned how sensitive gray bats are to disturbance, they took it on themselves to reach out to the caving community and let everyone know not to visit that part of the cave while the bats were hibernating. There's actually an article in the NSS News from the 1970s about this. Huntsville cavers worked to protect the bats for over a decade until the Fish and Wildlife Service bought four of the five entrances to Fern Cave specifically to protect the bats. We were lucky that the refuge managers were open to continued recreational caving as long as the bats were not disturbed. Most of Fern has zero endangered bats, and even very few pips. They don't seem to like the microclimate of most of the cave, which is very dry and warm. They only roost in one isolated section that acts as a cold trap during the winter; the usual temperature in the Morgue in February is right around 39 degrees, very unusual for TAG.

By the time FWS bought the cave in the 1981, cavers were very familiar with the whole cave system, which is extremely confusing and very technical. The entrance to the bat hibernacula has a 100 foot entrance pit, and the rest of the hibernation section is sort of treacherous and requires a good bit of vertical work. The bats hibernate in approximately three miles of deep, vertical passage. The rest of the ~12 miles of cave is like a giant 3D maze and the gray bats never roost in that section. Because of the complicated and difficult nature of the cave, the FWS actually appointed a caver to serve as the cave's access coordinator to manage the cave for them. The first access coordinator was John Van Swearingen IV (JV) and he worked with FWS for many, many years to make sure the bats weren't disturbed and to make sure the rest of the cave system was protected. It worked out really well. Nobody ever went into the part of the cave with the bats (the Morgue) between August 15 and April 15. That part of the cave was only open for sport caving in the summer when bats weren't there, and the bat colony thrived. We took Merlin back to the cave in 2003 because he wanted to see how the colony was doing. No researcher had done any studies on the bats in Fern since Merlin's studies in the 1970s. Merlin said that bats were doing great and he was really pleased at the estimated numbers of bats (they counted over 800,000 in one day and estimated the total colony was then 1.5 million). The interesting thing is that as far as we know, no state or federal biologists responsible for managing the cave have ever been inside it. All of the monitoring, research, and protection of the cave since it was first discovered in 1969 has been done entirely by cavers. Even when WNS became a threat a couple years ago, no researchers went to the cave to do any mist netting, acoustic monitoring, etc. There have been no research trips (by biologists) into the cave except the trips Merlin set up in the 1970s and in 2003, even though we've seen thousands of banded bats in there during our quick winter monitoring trips.

Cavers have done practically all of the work to protect and preserve Fern Cave's gray bats. We've done all of the in-cave research and monitoring to determine whether or not WNS had reached Fern. Up until 2009, we'd been actively surveying the cave, working on a biological inventory of the cave system for FWS, and working on a variety of other projects. Obviously, now we can't go to the cave at all unless FWS asks us to go there to look at the bats. I doubt FWS will ever willingly reopen the cave, even though nobody outside of the caving community knows squat about it and it's now more at risk than at any point over the last 40 years. We're sure people are sneaking into the cave now, and we've heard there are mobile meth labs springing up in the area now that cavers aren't out there every weekend.

I love the bats in Fern and have done everything I personally can to protect them. After spending the better part of 20 years working in the cave, I feel a strong connection to it. That's why I find it so extremely annoying that cavers are being treated like pariahs by FWS when we are actually the group that has done the most to protect the largest gray bat cave in the entire country.

If anyone is interested in photos of the last several bat inventories in Fern, I have pictures on Flickr (haven't loaded this year's photos yet).

2009: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpinkley/s ... 244283927/
2010: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpinkley/s ... 245638263/

Anyway, that's my rant for the week. Thought some of you might be interested in that history given the current cave closure and anti-caver policies of FWS and other agencies.

[Phil Winkler]

Jenn,

Excellent and accurate history of the Morgue Sink and that area of Fern. I remember the stories of the piles of bat bones (hence the Morgue name). I suspect the Morgue is cold in winter due to it being a cold sink with little air flow. Cold air sinks. If you ever get to Four Wells you can experience the same phenomenon even in the summer. It is cold down there. Open air, large pits provide this feature of a cold sink.

I forget the 1st manager that HG worked with at Wheeler, but he liked the cavers and was instrumental in establishing the relationship that still exists today. JV played a large role in this as did others in HG.

[tncaver]

Pippin,
Thank you for your years of service looking after the bats in the Morgue entrance to Fern Cave and also for letting everyone know the truth
about FWS.

[Pippin]

The current managers of the cave were really good to work with until WNS became an issue and they always appreciated caver volunteers. They still value our volunteer work, but I get the impression that even if local managers wanted to reopen part of the cave at some point that national bureaucrats would nix that. Just the impression I get from talking with various people. I've learned more about FWS politics over the last few years than I ever wanted to know, and what I've learned does not make me feel good about the future of caving on state or federal land.

[Chads93GT]

Considering 80% of the cave isn't even on gubment land...................................

[trogman]

Considering 80% of the cave isn't even on gubment land...................................

Which brings up an interesting question...if the SCCI wanted to reopen the Surprise Pit entrance, what would be the repercussions of such a move? Or at least open it during the months when the bats aren't there. I understand that caves are bought or leased by the SCCI for a variety of reasons, but it is my understanding that the lease of the Surprise Pit entrance was set up primarily to allow caver access. I have yet to do this pit, and would love to have the opportunity at some point. Maybe some SCCI board members can comment on this.
If this cave is to be forever off-limits, then perhaps the government should take over the control of this entrance as well, and the SCCI could spend that money elsewhere.

Trogman

[BrianC]

Considering 80% of the cave isn't even on gubment land...................................

Which brings up an interesting question...if the SCCI wanted to reopen the Surprise Pit entrance, what would be the repercussions of such a move? Or at least open it during the months when the bats aren't there. I understand that caves are bought or leased by the SCCI for a variety of reasons, but it is my understanding that the lease of the Surprise Pit entrance was set up primarily to allow caver access. I have yet to do this pit, and would love to have the opportunity at some point. Maybe some SCCI board members can comment on this.
If this cave is to be forever off-limits, then perhaps the government should take over the control of this entrance as well, and the SCCI could spend that money elsewhere.

Trogman

The loss of the cave to the FWS means that protection provided by the cavers would not exist! You know what that will bring.

[self-deleted_user]

Those are amazing photos! Wow! Bats are so awesome =) Thanks for your work and the photos!

[DeanWiseman]

Considering 80% of the cave isn't even on gubment land...................................

There are provisions of the Endangered Species Act which give legal jurisdiction over private property, if it is deemed crucial to protection of the species in question. You can run, but you can't hide...


-Dean


Dean Wiseman
NSS#32690 RL, BOG