Pennsylvania Game Commission Wants Private Caves Closed

[MUD]

http://www.gantdaily.com/news/43/ARTICL ... 05-10.html

[tncaver]

Once again government agencies are calling for the closure of ALL CAVES. I find this getting more and more annoying
every time I hear it. Not just closing BAT CAVES, but closing ALL CAVES. Except, COMMERCIAL caves are not being requested to close. That's because they make money and provide jobs for people.

Many Commercial Caves have lots of bats too. HUMANS visit COMMERCIAL CAVES. Government is all about what's good for business, cutting their own expenses, (like managing their forests), and trying to look good for conservationists, which they do very little of as is. Government is NOT for conservation, endangered species, etc. They are for MONEY, and cutting their own
costs. What they don't realize is that caving tourists are going to go somewhere else. The TOURISM BUSINESS will suffer. All the small towns that have caves are going to lose business because cavers will be FORCED to go caving somewhere else. Fewer gasoline sales, less food sales, fewer hotel stays. Caves without bats should be OPEN. Cavers should be encouraged to cave in their OWN AREAS, in NON BAT caves, following proper disinfection protocol, just in case humans can transport WNS, which is still NOT PROVEN. PITIFUL! I'm sick of hearing this drivel.

On top of all this, government is trying to GATE every dang cave they can. They are using WNS as an excuse to close every
cave on their land and as many private ones as they can too. This makes me want to PUKE!

[MUD]

What they want and what they'll get is two entirely different things!

The PA. chapter of The Secret Caving Society of Secret Caving Buddies membership is currently on the rise.

[hewhocaves]

From the article...

Commercially-run caves, generally, are ones with large openings in which visitors are only in contact with the ground

Um... in a cave, isn't EVERYTHING the ground?
Also, if entrance aperture is a factor, that should make caves like the NSS-owned Tytoona Cave perfect for keeping open.
And thinking of Tytoona, that brings up another question - what about *formerly* commercial caves? I can think of about a half-dozen of those in Pa. Shouldn't they be allowed to stay open?

I'm being an ass.. but then so is the Pa Game Commission. i've mentioned in previous posts that that particular agency has had it in for cavers for a considerable amount of time - they're pretty much an excuse for rednecks to shoot whatever they want for as long as they want.

[dfcaver]

Just have the trip leader charge everyone a dollar at the entrance, including himself. Then they're all commercial caves. After all, the only difference is the money.

[hewhocaves]

Just have the trip leader charge everyone a dollar at the entrance, including himself. Then they're all commercial caves. After all, the only difference is the money.

LOL... thats absolute genius. And we can use the money to buy up additional caves and drive the commercial owners out of business. And the government can't complain because free enterprise is what this country was built on. Healthy capitalist competition. We're being regulated out of a job so we need to change our business model.

And when we own all the caves, we can dig open new ones, let the commercial cave owners buy them and drive em' out of business again. Its the great circle of life...

(note: all tongue in cheek.)

[shibumi]

They can close my caves when they pry my cold dead body out of them...

Molon Labe!

I ran into a beaver (yes, furry thing, buck teeth, flat tail, eats trees, swims like an eel) in a cave
last night. Its nest was a couple hundred feet in the cave and it was about a thousand feet in
up on some breakdown.

We're going back in a week or two, if it is still there we may stuff it in a big pack and haul it
back to the entrance. They follow scent trails, but since this cave has switched airflows from winter to
summer flow I think it may be confused. I saw no visible fungus on it.

Various agencies really shoot themselves in the foot when they develop adversarial relationships with
cavers. I mean, it's freakin backwards. The agencies should work hard on cultivating the relationships
with caving groups as they are the best resource for the agencies to deal with their caves. Yet, almost
to a one, every single agency I've dealt with act as if they hold the holy relics and if we mere mortals
don't genuflect then we're excommunicated. Most caving groups I know bend over backwards to develop
and maintain relationships with agencies and I don't see a lot of flow the other direction (I do know of a few
that do, and I have a lot of respect for them).