Carter Cave WNS Regulations
Posted: Dec 19, 2013 10:02 am
While announcing that caving is back at Carter Caves State Park in Kentucky, the park has posted what have to be the most ridiculous anti-WNS regulations seen in the past five years.
http://www.winteradventureweekend.com/cave-trips.php
Here’s what the Park wants:
• Participants are not to bring any clothing or gear that has been in another cave or mine outside of the Carter Caves Region since 2006.
• Participants going on multiple wild cave trips during the weekend must have complete different sets of clothing/gear for each wild cave trip.
• You cannot use the same gear on two different wild cave trips.
• Participants are to wear coveralls or an outer layer of clothing that can be stripped and bagged after leaving the cave. Bags provided.
• Participants will also bag any other soft gear like knee or elbow pads.
• Participants will have their shoes & hard gear (helmets, lights) decontaminated following the cave trips.
The Park expects all gear not to have been in any other cave outside of Carter since 2006!!! And for cavers to bring two or three different sets of helmets, lights, coveralls, etc.!!! The cynics amongst us might term that the "support vendor's row" rule. What possible reason is there for cavers to have new and different gear for each intended cave trip? Visit three caves and you have to have three separate sets of gear.
The Park’s environmental decisions about WNS seem based on knee-jerk decisions first made in 2007 when, in fairness, nobody knew much about WNS in this country. I realize it is safer to say “no” than to say “yes” for any bureaucracy. Yet, part of the mission of the Parks is to educate. It seems the Kentucky Parks have gotten way off base with WNS requirements that are based on supposition, not science. The Carter Caves January event used to be a great weekend of caving. Where is the science that shows that any caver, anywhere, has been responsible for spreading the fungus and that it is not spread bat-to-bat?
http://www.winteradventureweekend.com/cave-trips.php
Here’s what the Park wants:
• Participants are not to bring any clothing or gear that has been in another cave or mine outside of the Carter Caves Region since 2006.
• Participants going on multiple wild cave trips during the weekend must have complete different sets of clothing/gear for each wild cave trip.
• You cannot use the same gear on two different wild cave trips.
• Participants are to wear coveralls or an outer layer of clothing that can be stripped and bagged after leaving the cave. Bags provided.
• Participants will also bag any other soft gear like knee or elbow pads.
• Participants will have their shoes & hard gear (helmets, lights) decontaminated following the cave trips.
The Park expects all gear not to have been in any other cave outside of Carter since 2006!!! And for cavers to bring two or three different sets of helmets, lights, coveralls, etc.!!! The cynics amongst us might term that the "support vendor's row" rule. What possible reason is there for cavers to have new and different gear for each intended cave trip? Visit three caves and you have to have three separate sets of gear.
The Park’s environmental decisions about WNS seem based on knee-jerk decisions first made in 2007 when, in fairness, nobody knew much about WNS in this country. I realize it is safer to say “no” than to say “yes” for any bureaucracy. Yet, part of the mission of the Parks is to educate. It seems the Kentucky Parks have gotten way off base with WNS requirements that are based on supposition, not science. The Carter Caves January event used to be a great weekend of caving. Where is the science that shows that any caver, anywhere, has been responsible for spreading the fungus and that it is not spread bat-to-bat?