Last week, I posted a new Summer Update on the NSS WNS website (http://www.caves.org/WNS). As always, I encourage you to go read it. In addition to the usual news, research, media stories, and educational materials, my message included the following:
On a personal note, I am stepping down as the WNS Liaison for the NSS, effective ... at the NSS Convention. I'm doing this for personal reasons, but in communicating my resignation to the NSS I also believe we're at a turning point with WNS. The NSS initially stepped up to help co-sponsor the first WNS conference, to establish the Rapid Response Fund to help get research dollars out into the field as soon as possible, and more rapidly than state and federal government sources could, to act as managers of affected WNS sites in New York, and to help educate the media and public.
We're long past the “Rapid Response” and emergency measures time frame, and have been moving steadily toward a conservation focus over the past couple of years. Yes, we can still do our preventive part by ensuring that any gear used in WNS regions is not taken elsewhere, minimizing even the low risk of assisting in the transport of the disease. However, as bats will continue to be the primary disease spreaders, and we as yet have no way to stop that, efforts have been increasing to understand the survival dynamics of remaining bats. Protecting significant hibernacula, and especially avoiding cave visitation when bats are present and hibernating is something cavers knew long before WNS. We can redouble our efforts to educate the public about this and practice it ourselves.
In my communication to the NSS, I've suggested an outline for re-orienting the long-term WNS response and activities to reflect this changing environment. The NSS Board of Governors will be discussing and addressing this during their meetings at the Convention. I encourage you to let them know your thoughts.
In stepping down, I want to extend my personal respect and admiration to the many bat researchers I've met and worked with. These are incredible scientists who care deeply about the animals they study – and they're cool people, too! To the state and federal agency personnel who the public charges with protection of species, I thank you for your efforts, sometimes above and beyond the call of duty, and certainly beyond the bounds of government funding and bureaucratic constraints. I also want to thank the thousands of NSS members who have actively communicated with me and with your local and regional state and federal agencies and who, every day, help formally and informally with the discovery, study, management, and protection of bat and cave resources. I've learned so much from all of you, as I hope you have from me. I do truly believe that this has been a collaborative effort, with an extremely vibrant and lively discussion on science, management, conservation, and yes, even politics. I do believe most of us have insisted on science being the driving force behind our work, frustratingly slow as science sometimes is, and that we're the better for it.
I want to thank NSS Presidents Wm Shrewsbury and Gordon Birkhimer, and the entire Board of Governors for their policy, budget, legal, and spiritual support. WNS has been a challenge to the NSS – both its members and leadership – and I'm very appreciative of the support from all quarters.
Finally, I won't name names here, but I've been blessed with an extremely dedicated core of WNS Ad Hoc Liaison Committee members for these many years who have helped vet policy, publicity, publications, keep the website current (and functioning), research, management, government relations, outreach and education, and local and regional networking across the country, and much, much more. You know who you are. The NSS has been well-served by your efforts, and I trust you will continue to be involved. Thank you all.
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