Need info on caver contributions to WNS work

[bigredfoote]

Dear WNS Research Contributors,

I am planning to present a poster at the USFWS White Nose Syndrome Workshop the first week of September to promote the WNS projects that NSS members are contributing to. I have a list of WNS research projects the NSS has funded, but since cavers tend to be quiet about the hard work we do underground, the NSS does not have a complete list of projects that members have volunteered on.

Please help me start up a list of all the WNS projects (and volunteer value), that we are helping on or leading. Please send me information(bigredfoote@hotmail.com) on any projects where the NSS, its internal organizations, grottos, surveys, etc. are actively working with federal/state/local agencies or with private landowners. If I need more info than you send me, I will ask for more detail, but please send as much detail as you can send in a timely manner. In the next 2.5 months or so, this will be a document available to the public (I will obfuscate info as much as needed).

(please forward to anyone who contributed to research or knows someone who has a friend who might have!)
thanks

Jennifer Foote
NSS USFWS WNS Stakeholder Committee Rep.

[wyandottecaver]

I assisted with the original NSS/USGS soil sampling project and also did some general cave documentation/mapping work for the USFS under permit. It would help to know what specific information your after. Of course anything brought to the USFWS attention involving cavers actually going in caves should contain as little information as possible

[caverdan]

The Williams Canyon Project, (which is sponsored by the NSS) has been working with the Colorado State Parks and Wildlife Department for three years now. We lead them to known bat caves on the property so they can install loggers that measure temperature and humidity. They are trying to determine if conditions exist in our caves to support the growth of WNS.

I would estimate we do about 4 trips a year to check on the loggers. Each trip takes LP and I about 6 hours of our time to complete with them. It takes us 2 trips to visit all the caves the loggers are installed in. So that means the loggers are serviced and the info downloaded twice a year. The loggers they are using are about the size of a nickel in a plastic holder. They also have ones they place at entrances that pick up VHF noises to help monitor any use by the bats and get more info on their movements.

Once again.....the largest concentration of bats are in the quarry above the canyon.....proving my point .....that our bats prefer the large open spaces of the mines.....over the tight crawly caves of our state.

[bigredfoote]

I'm a little unspecific, since I'd like to get as much info as possible on any kind of WNS projects NSS members are contributing to. A lot of grottos do volunteer work, and the NSS has had a difficult time trying to keep track of it (everyone wants to cave, no-one wants to do paperwork).

It will be going into a spreadsheet and hopefully I can refine the information to say something like, over __ NSS members have contributed __ dollars worth of manpower towards WNS research on __ scientific papers, helped __ agencies and private landowners with assessing their bat status above and below ground, acoustical monitoring, and __ projects.


I would say the minimum of information would be:
*name of the project and/or general description of what the research is,
*the location (at least state) where the work was done,
*who the work was done for (e.g. Roswell BLM, University of NM, private landowner),
*name of the people or group volunteering,
*approximate dates work was done
*Estimates of how much work/value done (i.e. two people for 10 hours on three trips in 2012, $200 of monitoring equipment).

If you only know that someone from your grotto talked to your local boy scout troop about WNS and decontamination, send me that. Lots of things we do are contributions to research, management, and education.

thanks,

Jennifer