by PYoungbaer » May 29, 2012 4:29 pm
The more I read and think about this, the more it takes me back to one of the initial investigative issues we had with WNS - the lack of baseline data on non-threatened species.
Wildlife biologists have long had their study sites - mostly gated and closed - and data was officially recognized only if an "official" or known academic researcher provided it. When the NSS joined with the U.S. Geological Survey's David Blehert, Boston University's Tom Kunz, and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation's Al Hicks to do the extensive 30-state sampling of cave sediments to see how ubiquitous the then-suspect fungus was in the environment, the biologists reacted strongly against others going out and collecting samples in bat caves.
They wanted to do it, but they would only be going into the sites they already knew and worked in, such as the Indiana bat hibernacula, which were on schedule for their biennial survey.
While we did want them to sample from these caves, and had no intention of additional visitation to those sites - one of their concerns, that method would not have provided anywhere near a valid geographically diverse sampling. It was a bit of a battle to get the cooperation necessary to do the valid sampling.
Now, with the cave closures, we are only getting what I think may be a biased sampling again. These researchers are going into sites they know, ones that are gated or otherwise closed. Samples are not being taken from other sites. In Indiana, I'm told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken over the bat surveying and long-time people and methodologies have changed, making comparisons with previous databases difficult. I have a similar report from Wisconsin, where a longtime bat surveyor has been told his services are no longer welcome.
Perhaps the agencies can't see how this is being perceived, but it is coming across as controlling - of the data, and thus the story. These aren't my words, but I'll repeat them to make the point about the perception problem the agencies have: it seems that if you don't have tan shirt with an embroidered logo, your data/opinion/information isn't valid. There's nothing magic about the clothes, and one of my frustrations with this whole WNS thing is that I hear and see far too many managers who know nothing about caves, much less having ever been in one, offering opinions and making decisions about them. To be fair, just because someone puts on a caving helmet and crawls underground doesn't make them an expert on caves or cave conservation either, but I don't find the dynamic at work helpful.
Which brings me back to the issue tncaver and others have raised - why is it that the vast majority of reports of WNS spreading come from sites that are closed? Because those are the only ones being checked.
Ironically, this poses a growing problem for the wildlife agencies, as it makes the case over and over again that cave closures are doing nothing to stop the spread of WNS. This breeds increasing skepticism of management initiatives, and in the overall credibility of the agencies. The USFWS caving advisory had lots of credibility problems within the caving community right from the start, and the blanket closure orders by both state and federal agencies - and how they've been implemented - haven't moved to improve that perception.
Politics is perception, and the acceptance of proposals for management will be directly tied to how well the activities are perceived. Right now, the agencies have a long way to go to improve that perception.