surprised?

[Teresa]

A number of items in this thread raised some eyebrows.

"The USGS should stick to rocks." Some years back, the National Biological Service was integrated into the USGS. It is still its own division. Be assured the rock guys aren't doing bats, and the bio people aren't doing mining engineering assessment.

"Why didn't they close the cave when they found WNS there?" Is Howe Caverns closed, and no one told me?

"Cavers are being selfish where wns is involved...." What's wrong with selfish if it is another word for enlightened self-interest? And, sorry, eyecave, the fact of the matter is the primary transmission path is bat to bat. Period. Does this mean cavers could not/don't spread WNS if contaminated? Of course not. But as I've been saying for some time now, with some shock value: yes, you can get an STD from a toilet seat. But it's not very likely compared to other means. So why are we disinfecting toilet seats for that 1 out of 1000 case, instead of worrying about the bat to bat spread? Why are WNS precautions trumping the other 1001 ecological, biological, social, political, geologic and hydrological values of caves? Because the biologists say so, and the media loves they hype of things dying.

Yes there are scientists looking into the bat to bat spread. Just as the bee mite experts finally got a handle on the bee die off. We can give them some space to do their work. But it's really weird to be at a grotto meeting and hear a young man say, "Maybe we shouldn't be in the caves at all. Maybe we should be cavers who never go in caves." (We actually give an armchair caver award, but armchair caving is like rooting for a sports team and confusing it with playing. Just exactly how can one be a caver without going in caves? Beyond my comprehension.

I want to be in a world where both bats and people matter. Not either/or. And I don't have wings, nor do I squeak in the ultrasonic. That's why people are being "selfish."

[tncaver]

tn caver, i see, not surprisingly, that you are quick to pin the spread on bats and not on cavers,........a stance the nss very recently made clear they also support..........................so, since it is impossible for cavers to be significantly involved in the spread of wns please tell us where it will next be found........

Just a guess eyecave, but I'd say WNS is probably heading your direction with slight variations East and West, and it should arrive sometime later this year
or early next year, on it's way toward Alabama and Georgia. But lets hope a hot summer or some other freak of nature stops it in its tracks.

[PYoungbaer]

quick to pin the spread on bats and not on cavers,........a stance the nss very recently made clear they also support........

This is not a correct statement regarding the NSS's position. The NSS believes the evidence over the past two years shows that the spread of WNS is primarily bat to bat, consistent with the proven method of bat to bat transmission. The NSS acknowledges that human transmission is possible, though far less probable. This is why it's recent press release calls for targeting the scarce financial and human resources on the former, while still emphasizing the need for cleaning and decontamination, keeping gear from WNS sites out of any new areas.

...it seems perfectly logical to me that the information on bat migration patterns has been thoroughly researched by various academiatypes so as to make that a piece of cake........please go on and overlay the known patterns and predict the entire scenario....specific populations of bats in specific caves along a specific and known route.......piece of cake......i do wonder why this particular cave wasn't in the group of early predictions as to where it would appear..

Morrell Cave (also known as Worley's and many other variations of both) is directly in the path of the known bat migration movements and the expected spread of WNS, expecially given its close proximity to Virginia's southernmost WNS site last year. No one, to my knowledge is predicting cave by cave spread (they've got better things to do), but the following map shows where most observers are expecting spread - all of which is consistent with bat to bat transmission.





(Edit: My apologies, I tried to get this image larger, but couldn't. If you click on it, it will enlarge for easier viewing.)

[wyandottecaver]

eyecave,

lets assume something that I don't see any evidence for: Humans regularly transport WNS when travelling between caves, and Worley cave is an example of a cave infected by people.

What happens if we close Worley cave? The infected bats spread it. What happens if we successfully close all caves and keep all people from caving? The infected bats spread it, and the very people and organizations most effective at protecting ALL the inhabitants of caves are effectively gutted in terms of being able to fund and conduct preservation, research, study, and education.

If cavers were the only, or even primary vector we could argue that the "safety" of bats lay in our own actions. It doesn't.....unless you mean we start culling infected colonies...but I'm the only one beating that drum.

[eyecave]

so, you can't comprimise your caving habits....................hmmmmmmmmmmmm...........well........you better hope your future never depends on "intelligent" bats............[

[eyecave]

let me change that............you all can't change your caving habits................you all do realize that the actions in each area where the infections are worse are very fast....................in a matter of two or three years it will be over for the bats that don;t survive because of genetic variations............

so what is so weird about little ole me expecting my nss to come out with a MUCH stronger statement concerning caving in ALLL:L caves during and approaching hibernation....any bats genetically gifted with being able to survive white nose syndrome deserve our restricting caving AS A GROUP AND AS A WHOLE in deference to allowing the bats the best odds of surviving....am i an idiot for thinking this might be important and that all of us should feel that same thing............................on a lighter note.........has anyone thought of a way to position food at the entrance of caves in winter that would provide food for bats........(roadkill and such).......what about introducing immune european bats into our bat population.......

[eyecave]

i mean.......how can you talk about the importance of bats and then in the same breath insist on "YOUR CAVING RIGHTS"....visualizing an ideal world where what you do affects nothing other than those things you want our actions to affect.....cavers should be willing to comprimise their underground activities in all caves because of two things.............if no body goes underground no body spreads wns...........(properly disinfected surveys i accept as necessary, but not during deep hibernation)...............number two........john doe doesn't UNKNOWINGLY kill bat 4456734864532999aahdbe because he went to that twenty foot pit during the dead of winter and stirred the bat enough from his sleep to lead to his starvation...........

i am sorry for being compassionat about the earth and intelligent enough to realize my stupidity..........i think the caving community should be ashamed that these two approaches to this situation are not being stressed and that this obvious sacrifice that cavers should make hasn't been brought up by our representatives or other cavers.....the overwhelming selfish motivations that we feel individually and especially as a group are rather evident.......i am not a humanist....

[eyecave]

hey.........i just got another hairbrained idea..............................talking about the migration routes of bats..........i wonder if cavers have a similar pattern of caving......if cavers who are in north east tennessee go into the north eastern part of the us more often than a birmingham caver.......hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..........i wonder also if cavers in virginia are more likely to visit north east tn than north east alabama................so.............if that is true, that cavers tend to cave in the area of the country they live in, cavers also inadvertently could carry the fungi into a NORMAL AND PREDICTED BAT MIGRATION CAVE SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAVE IN THE TWO AREAS one with wns and the other without........so those "scientist" who ELIMINATE THE POSSIBILITY THAT CAVERS ARE SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTORS TO WNS AND THAT ONLY BATS ARE POSSIBLE SPREADERS........are ignoring the obvious pattern of caving that simply says that you would be more likely to visit caves in your area than those distant..........wonder why none of the migration majors have pointed this fact out?.....

heck fire i ha just discovered another one of them things where one thing is true and the other truth can't be true cause most of us don't want it to be true......sorry............i am not a humanist...........

[eyecave]

look, i am not saying that bats don't smooze each bat they have the opportunity to smooze......nah....i am only absolutely certain that the normal actions of bats for survival are NOT ALL the problem..........no, what irks me is............just that cavers are not embracing their impact and the proper actions they should embrace............no, i am just a little appalled at the caving community...........not surprised..........not mystified,..........not confused..........and also and sadly........not proud,...........just appalled..........

[NZcaver]

A great number (dare I say a majority) of cavers in many regions have changed their caving habits in response to WNS. This is in addition to the standard caving practice of avoiding hibernating bats, whether affected by WNS or not.

To quote Teresa, "I want to be in a world where both bats and people matter. Not either/or."

[tncaver]

eyecave, you must have your head buried in the ground........................and I don't mean in a cave..........................
You must not have been following the evidence that has been presented on this forum for the past few years. Like the maps
that clearly show WNS is following bat migratory paths perfectly and that cavers go in every direction that transportation
can take them, yet WNS continues to move only Southward along the standard bat migration path. Open you eyes and look. You
may have to wade through a hundred pages of forum but it's all there and more.

[wyandottecaver]

it's not a matter of compromising caving habits, as NZ said many have adjusted their habits. Its the simple fact that stopping caving will not stop WNS. Period. It will eventually stop the things we do for everything else related to caves besides just bats.

By bats with immunity you mean the bats we have seen zero evidence of right? There is not 1 case of a bat showing immunity in the US. Anywhere, anytime.

Artificial feeding of wildlife with a few very short term exceptions is always always always bad. Backyard birdfeeders have slaughtered more birds through disease and concentrating them for predators (like cats and hawks) than the food has ever helped. Introducing exotic species is even worse. It might well have been a European bat hitchhiking on a boat that brought WNS here to begin with.

If nobody goes underground, bats spread WNS anyway, but no body cares if wallmart builds a parking lot over a cave they cant use, study, or be educated about.

It is a MYTH that a single disturbance endangers hibernating bats. Bats awaken naturally at regular intervals in winter. repeated disturbances can certainly be a factor, but even in commercial caves with lights, and multiple tours a day, bats often CHOOSE to return year after year and survive quite well.

Certainly both bats and people tend to use caves close to them. The difference, is that there are enough cavers that DO travel across multiple states regularly that WNS should have shown up by now in someplace like Indiana, MIssouri, or even Texas. It hasnt. That doesn't mean people can't spread WNS, it means they dont seem to be doing so at a frequency that matters in comparison to bats themselves.

[eyecave]

tncaver........i would never bury my head in the ground whether in a cave or out!........you have once again completely blown off the possibility that contaminated cavers going from a cave with the fungi to one without don't cause any perceptible change in the spread.............i don't see how you see that but that is what you are seeing and saying.......and that those same cavers actively spreading it within a restricted overlapping area wouldn't make any difference in the outcome..............oh, i am mistaken.......that was a position taken by:
wyandottecaver.......direct paraphrase....."its not that cverss don't spread wns....it is so slight in comparison to what the bats do...(s)

rreason numero two: you say it is a myth that bats cannot be disturbed during hibernation.......these disturbances can exceed one event and fall within being a myth as far as it being abnormal, dangerous, bad, negative, even slightly harmful perhaps.............................well, wns has shown up wyndottecaver and this ain't a normal time.....and one disturbance could make a difference for those bats genetically gifted enough to survive....why do you not acknowledge the fact that the caving community needs to take an extraordinary action during this extraordinary time and stop caving during hibernation months in all caves
?............

i am not arguing about the value of caving in relation to the social impacts that has......please stop bringing up that somehow if people change their caving habits for a few years it will severely impact the membership and financial support of the caving community......i also don't thing that will happen.....if anything maybe more support will surface because of stories that streess what cavers have given up in an effort to assist bats.........

wyandottcaver.......feeding wildlife is another classic argument to bring up in this forum in response to my mentioning the audacious plan of providing food for the bats that awaken during hibernation and attempt to leave the cave because they are straving to death...........i am such a buffoon for thinking that proving a possibility that a fungi infested bat that was......lets say at the genetic edge of being able to survive this fungi........yeah.......lets blow off any chance that for a year or two or what ever it took during the time of the die off to provide a means for a food source...............lets employ those classic arguments that make sense in a real world to offset efforts at taking a radical approach during an extraordinary time.....my question to you is whose side are you on?.........

wyandottecaver.....i only quote math............i have yet to see statistics compiled by batologists that don't say 96 percent, 98 percent etc...........i was not aware it was 100 percent fatal to allllllll bats in every cave.....your firm claims that no baats in the north american area have shown any tendency to survive the infestation seems almost anti genetic......i am surprised and not................................i wonder also if you are aware of the biological origins of the wns?.........it comes from europe........erropean bats are immune to the fungi, they have a symbiotic relation with it.......it doesn't usually kill the bat that has it........i am assuming that bats in south america will by then have the immunity thru evolution and eventually spread back up over the entire north american continent....so., in the very end an entirely new species of bats from south america will replace our present population sir......................if we are lucky!...............i am also comforted by the awareness that i do not need the cooperation of cavers who argue with me......the jungles and hidden caves of that area...and the resultant ultimate genetic potential..... make my concerns very superficial.......... .

and last but not least, your oppening paragraph once again puts forth the argument that cavers going into caves and talking about it and supporting it are enough reasons to offset any other actions by the caving community more radical that encouraging decontamination..........................................

once again, i am not a humanist..........

[eyecave]

i have come up with a motto for the human race in relation to wns..........you all ready.......here it is, the real felling of the nss and cavers in general if not generally ....ya'll ready?......"even temporarily...caving means more than bats"...........

[eyecave]

iamnotahumanist.............