Michigan WNS management plan 12/2010

[John Lovaas]

Missed this one- I was otherwise distracted at the time..;-)

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/emerg ... 2261_7.pdf

[tncaver]

Some portions of the Michigan WNS plan really stand out: (Big Brother strikes again)

3. Biosecurity: Because human-assisted spread of G. destructans is one of the documented
means by which WNS is disseminated to uninfected areas, biosecurity (essentially, measures to
mitigate transport of diseases by humans) is critical. Moreover, it is currently the only effective
control measure available for use against WNS. The most effective method of biosecurity is to
minimize the number of humans entering bat hibernacula, and this method should be used in all
situations where its application is feasible.

The US National Park Service at Mammoth Cave National Park has developed a useful
interactive tool that it uses to screen cave visitors who may have previously visited infected
hibernacula ( http://www.nps.gov/maca/whitenose.html ) and so be vectoring G. destructans.
Carefully designed screening tools such as this should minimize (but are unlikely to eliminate)
visitors reluctance to participate, or their propensity to lie about their previous cave/mine
visitation. Once such high-risk individuals are identified, they can be targeted for WNS
intervention strategies such as personalized education efforts (e.g., to convince them not to enter
hibernacula with contaminated clothing or objects) or decontamination procedures. Those
decontamination procedures can then be the same as those discussed in Section II.B.3.1.

[John Lovaas]

For what it's worth, Mammoth Cave NP has the most logical and reasonable visitor/caver decon procedures of any management agency in the US.

In a nutshell- Decon your gear(if it has been used in another cave) before you visit a cave in the park, decon your gear between the park's caves(unless they are in the same ridge), and decon your gear after your visit to the park, and stay out of colonial caves.

Seems reasonable to me.

[boogercaver71]

For what it's worth, Mammoth Cave NP has the most logical and reasonable visitor/caver decon procedures of any management agency in the US.

In a nutshell- Decon your gear(if it has been used in another cave) before you visit a cave in the park, decon your gear between the park's caves(unless they are in the same ridge), and decon your gear after your visit to the park, and stay out of colonial caves.

Seems reasonable to me.

Me Too

[tncaver]

I think what strikes me the most about the Michigan statement, are the two excerpts from the portion of the document I posted above.
Those excerpts are stated below.

"Because human-assisted spread of G. destructans is one of the documented
means by which WNS is disseminated to uninfected areas,"

Has that been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by anyone? Documented? Unless I missed something, that is still speculation.
A few spores "might" can be transfered on clothing if someone tries intentionally, really hard to make it happen and makes a point to go to the bat area
of a cave infected with WNS. But most cavers with any sense at all, don't do that. Washing and flushing will eliminate most all spores and those
lovely chemicals that some people use will kill any spores that "might" remain after washing and rinsing.

"Once such high-risk individuals are identified"

That excerpt really reminds me of big brother. Next thing you know they will want to inject an RF tag into an "identified caver" so they can just
scan them at the entrance to all the commercial caves.

[PYoungbaer]

"Because human-assisted spread of G. destructans is one of the documented
means by which WNS is disseminated to uninfected areas,"

Has that been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by anyone? Documented? Unless I missed something, that is still speculation.

It has not been documented. It has not been proven.

[Claude Koch]

Hi Peter,
This little excerpt also caught my attention. While they acknowledge the Hellhole Cave closure since 2007, they base further assumptions (I guess that's why they call it Situations and Assumptions) on the Missouri and Oklahoma evidence. It is my understanding that the 2 caves that are being referenced in those 2 states are also gated or monitored caves, which would seem to me to mean that caver to bat transmission of geomyces destructans to those 2 caves would be a highly questionable assumption on their, or anybody elses, part.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Situation and Assumptions
1.1. History and detail of the disease to date: The history of the WNS outbreak and details of
what is known about the disease current to this writing are presented in web publications of the
USGS (http://www.fort.usgs.gov/WNS/) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service
(http://www.fws.gov/WhiteNoseSyndrome/about.html). A summary is presented in Section
A.1.1. above.

1.2. Why planning is needed: To date, evidence suggests that WNS is transmitted by two routes.
First, studies in spring of 2010 in Hell Hole Cave, West Virginia, that state’s largest bat
hibernacula, found it affected with WNS. Because the cave is privately owned, closed off to
humans and electronically monitored to record any human intrusion, it could be documented that
no humans had been in the cave since February 2007. Thus, it can be concluded with near
certainty that WNS was brought into the cave by bats and propagated bat-to-bat. Second, the
long distances noted between affected caves in New York (2008) and in southern Virginia
(2009), or from Virginia to Tennessee, Missouri and Oklahoma in 2010, are beyond the flight
ranges affected bat species move in a single year. This suggests that G. destructans was brought
into the site by humans that had visited infected caves elsewhere. Without completely disrupting
their behavior and ecology, there is currently no way to prevent bat-to-bat transmission of G.
destructans. Consequently, the only feasible intervention that can be made to slow transmission
and geographic spread is to prevent mechanical vectoring of the fungus by humans. The fungus
has been isolated from footwear, clothing and caving gear (Okoniewski et al., 2010). While
comparisons to other recent panzootic fungal disease outbreaks are not encouraging (Robbins
and Windmiller, 2010), it is conceivable that effective measures to limit transmission and
geographic spread may be developed in future. In that case, data on locations, sizes and disease
status of hibernacula will be necessary, and planning to implement surveillance and control
measures essential.

[BrianC]

"Because human-assisted spread of G. destructans is one of the documented
means by which WNS is disseminated to uninfected areas,"

Has that been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by anyone? Documented? Unless I missed something, that is still speculation.

It has not been documented. It has not been proven.

So we are, or are not "beating a dead horse" ?

[BrianC]

Though no facts provide evidence that humans have transmitted WNS, the longer that the misinformation is allowed to be published, the more qualified the misinformation will become!!!!!

Any caver want to stop this?

[tncaver]

Though no facts provide evidence that humans have transmitted WNS, the longer that the misinformation is allowed to be published, the more qualified the misinformation will become!!!!!

Any caver want to stop this?

Sometimes it seems as if most cavers don't give a squat whether they get to cave on public land again in their lifetime.
So how do we stop this BS from being repeated over and over?

[BrianC]

Though no facts provide evidence that humans have transmitted WNS, the longer that the misinformation is allowed to be published, the more qualified the misinformation will become!!!!!

Any caver want to stop this?

Sometimes it seems as if most cavers don't give a squat whether they get to cave on public land again in their lifetime.
So how do we stop this BS from being repeated over and over?

I know that this is off topic, but you and I and a few others have spent the better part of two years trying, just to get the old adage " beating a dead horse"

[NZcaver]

To date, evidence suggests that WNS is transmitted by two routes.

... it can be concluded with near certainty that WNS was brought into the cave by bats and propagated bat-to-bat.

... the long distances noted between affected caves in New York (2008) and in southern Virginia (2009), or from Virginia to Tennessee, Missouri and Oklahoma in 2010, are beyond the flight ranges affected bat species move in a single year. This suggests that G. destructans was brought into the site by humans that had visited infected caves elsewhere.

This smells like BS. The first conclusion makes good sense, but the second is wild conjecture. "Humans must be at fault, because these distances are beyond the known flight range for these bat species." How do we know there weren't any infected sites located somewhere in the middle, unknown at that time? And how do we know bats aren't inadvertently spreading G. destructans in the same way we might run a baton-relay?

[nathanroser]

The "big jump" argument that humans spread the fungu is the only real possible evidence that makes any sense, and if G. destructans is native to Europe, how the heck did it get over to the states? (the live bat in a shipping container story seems like a possible scenario). However, I would like to know if other states besides New York were conducting WNS surveys in the winter of 2006-2007, because Schoharie and Albany counties do not encompass the entire maximum annual flight range of bats. So I believe the disease had already spread much further the New York and bordering states by the winter of 2007-2008, it just was not documented yet. So in reality, the "big jump" that seems to have been made possible by humans did not happen.

[tncaver]

The "big jump" argument that humans spread the fungu is the only real possible evidence that makes any sense, and if G. destructans is native to Europe, how the heck did it get over to the states? (the live bat in a shipping container story seems like a possible scenario). However, I would like to know if other states besides New York were conducting WNS surveys in the winter of 2006-2007, because Schoharie and Albany counties do not encompass the entire maximum annual flight range of bats. So I believe the disease had already spread much further the New York and bordering states by the winter of 2007-2008, it just was not documented yet. So in reality, the "big jump" that seems to have been made possible by humans did not happen.

Quite frankly the "big Jump" theory is a crock of crap. Bats are one mammalian species that has been studied very little. Many have been studied
less than others simply because they were never considered endangered or threatened in the past. Therefore for many species there is
no science to back up a big jump. Add the FACT that bats do hitch rides on vehicles of all kinds, and a big jump is easily possible no matter where it
happens and no matter what species is involved, and no cavers are required to make it happen. Recent banding and observations have confirmed that
bats do indeed migrate further than formerly thought.

The entire Michigan scenerio is Big Brother at its worst.

[BrianC]

Hey Tn, we are talking about bats, not elephants right?. I know that elephants can jump, but not as far as bats. Who knows ,

from what I have been reading, elephants or alligators (they can jump) could be responsible for the entire spread of WNS.