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Pippin wrote:What is CRF saying?
Teresa wrote:Forest Service is just talking to the people who are saying what they want to hear--mostly CRF.
Teresa wrote:It's just not what I and a lot of other cavers want to do on public lands and we're frustrated that people who have been our friends for years aren't talking to us, even though we are no more a a threat to the resource than any CRF person is.
I just happen to think that, at this point in time, some agencies are considering cavers under MOU as the only "good guys," which I simply do not believe is true, and which I think flies in the face of their mandate to consider their entire public constituencies in their decisions.
To consider those folks involves talking to them and both sides figuring out what is and is not possible.
The need for cave closures has been hotly contested by cavers, one of whom testified today that closures weren't warranted. Scientists at the hearing, however, contradicted that claim. Dr. Justin Boyles of the University of Tennessee, a bat biologist and white-nose syndrome researcher, testified that cave-closure policies for white-nose syndrome were “warranted and prudent,” and that human-facilitated movement of the disease could be “disproportionately devastating” to bat populations because of the possibility of long-distance jumps into new regions, creating new disease epicenters.
“This hearing should lay to rest once and for all the question of whether cave closures are needed to help stem the tide of this devastating disease,” said Matteson.
The cave closure does not preclude me from authorizing a local grotto of serious cavers who know about WNS and decon their gear to enter a cave for a specific purpose. The FS does not have a lot of folks that are expert cavers and many of our folks don't like to go underground. We need info on caves to properly conserve them and don't have a way to gather that info in technically difficult caves.
For example, I could authorize a local grotto to enter cave x for the purpose of mapping, installing data loggers, surveying for bats and other biota, looking for archeological artifacts, and photo document the site. I could also authorize a researcher that works in a given cave on arthropods to enter to continue their research as long as their gear has not been in another cave or is completely decontaminated. None of this would occur during the hibernation season. On the flip side of this, I couldn't authorize a grotto to just go on a caving trip. This would give the perception of exclusive use and there would be no benefit to the government or cave resource. Lets face it, the FS and probably most federal agencies know very little about their caves and we could keep NSS folks underground for years gathering data we need to properly manage the cave resources.
The point of the closures is to keep folks out that are clueless and not interested in cave conservation. The ones that leave their beer cans behind or the ones grottos have to rescue. I see no reason a cave closure would preclude us from working with the NSS on conservation issues.
On the flip side of this, I couldn't authorize a grotto to just go on a caving trip. This would give the perception of exclusive use and there would be no benefit to the government or cave resource.
boogercaver71 wrote:On the flip side of this, I couldn't authorize a grotto to just go on a caving trip. This would give the perception of exclusive use and there would be no benefit to the government or cave resource.
This is the kind of attitude that I find distasteful from our government. It is time to make our voices heard.
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