texascavers Digest 6 Mar 2009 16:58:01 -0000 Issue 720
Topics (messages 10289 through 10309):
contacting Preston Knodell
10289 by: vauterb.aol.com
well rescue in Mexico
10290 by: Antonio Aguirre Alvarez
10291 by: Don Cooper
10292 by: Lyndon Tiu
PNW Forest Service gears up for WNS
10293 by: Louise Power
carbon monoxide cave rescue
10294 by: Mixon Bill
Volunteering for Convention
10295 by: Preston Forsythe
10296 by: Minton, Mark
[Found on web] ["Bat Box" Heaters Could Save Animals' Lives]
10297 by: Don Arburn
heaters for bats
10298 by: Mixon Bill
10300 by: Minton, Mark
10301 by: Nancy Weaver
10302 by: Bill Bentley-Webmail
10303 by: Philip L Moss
10305 by: Jim Kennedy
10308 by: tbsamsel.verizon.net
Re: Male Student from Belgium interested in caving
10299 by: Robert B
More on Heated Bat Houses for WNS
10304 by: Minton, Mark
10306 by: Don Cooper
Re: "Bat Box" Curmudgeons
10307 by: Ed Goff
TCMA Auction at TSA Spring Convention
10309 by: Jim Kennedy
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Begin Message ---
Preston,
Please call Brian Vauter or Travis Wuest
at Natural Bridge Caverns
210-651-6101
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Last monday, ppl from the Mexican Red Cross and Espeleo Rescate Mexico from San
Luis Potosi and Queretaro were called to rescue 6 ppl who died inside in a well.
Two workers were tryng to dry a tunel with a gasoline powered pump. They died
fast because the CO. The owner and his wife tried to rescue them but died too.
The emergency groups were called then. So, 3 ppl enter the well. 2 firefighters
and a 1 paramedic from Red Cross. Just 1 fireman scape from the inside. The
other 2 rescuers died.
The crew begins to work at tuesday 3am. The rescue was successfull the same day
at 1600hrs.
here is a note in english with some inaccuracy:
http://www.emsresponder.com/article/article.jsp?id=9088&siteSection=1
Soon, ofical report and pics in the ERM web site.
_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™: Life without walls.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_allup_1a_explore_032009
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--- Begin Message ---
WHY does this story "repeat itself"?
In striking similarity - has this not happened at least a couple of other
times in recent years?
-WaV
On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Antonio Aguirre Alvarez <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Last monday, ppl from the Mexican Red Cross and Espeleo Rescate Mexico
> from San Luis Potosi and Queretaro were called to rescue 6 ppl who died
> inside in a well.
> Two workers were tryng to dry a tunel with a gasoline powered pump. They
> died fast because the CO. The owner and his wife tried to rescue them but
> died too. The emergency groups were called then. So, 3 ppl enter the well. 2
> firefighters and a 1 paramedic from Red Cross. Just 1 fireman scape from the
> inside. The other 2 rescuers died.
> The crew begins to work at tuesday 3am. The rescue was successfull the same
> day at 1600hrs.
> here is a note in english with some inaccuracy:
> http://www.emsresponder.com/article/article.jsp?id=9088&siteSection=1
>
> Soon, ofical report and pics in the ERM web site.
>
> ------------------------------
> Windows Live™: Life without walls. Check it
> out.<http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_allup_1a_explore_032009>
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Failure to heed safe operating instructions means this will happen again and
again.
Happened a few times in Houston last September when people ran their generators
inside the house or garage, with the garage door closed.
A related subject are people who die painting the insides of tanks.
On Wed, 4 Mar 2009 20:58:58 -0600 [email protected] wrote:
> WHY does this story "repeat itself"?
> In striking similarity - has this not happened at least a couple of other
> times in recent years?
--
Lyndon Tiu
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--- Begin Message ---
Just thought you might like to see this message from Pat Ormsbee, Bat Ecologist
on the Willamette National Forest. Looks like they're gearing up to keep an eye
on the bats here in the Pacific NW. If you want to keep in touch with her on
this, her FS e-mail address is at the bottom of this message.
> Louise Power
> Finance Tech
> Medford District Office
> 541-618-2211
> ----- Forwarded by Louise Power/MDFO/OR/BLM/DOI on 03/05/2009 08:27 AM
> -----
>
> Subject
> A message from Pat Ormsbee re: WNS
>
> The following is a message from Pat Ormsbee - Bat Ecologist on the
> Willamette National Forest regarding some of the information she has
> obtained about the White Nose Syndrome (WNS):
>
>
> Hey guys, this is good news. I want to give you a heads up - White Nose
> Syndrome is spreading at an alarming rate and is simply decimating
> wintering bat colonies in the east, it is now in 7 states and spans an area
> several hundred miles. Colonies of 13,000 and larger are now at 100 or even
> worse, zero. The popular working hypothesis associates the syndrome
> primarily with a cold loving fungus. This fungus is spread by spores that
> can be carried by bats or people. The Western Bat Working Group is going to
> put together an action plan to raise awareness and prevention of potential
> spread of WNS in the west at our conference in Austin, TX in mid-April. The
> general concensus is this stuff could show up in The West via even 1 person
> who has visited the hot zone under the right conditions. I will be sending
> an email out soon about the possibility of having a one day grotto summit
> to get cavers up to speed and enlisted with assisting with prevention in
> the PNW. In the meantime, I strongly precaution you about traveling between
> caves without decontaminating your gear, especially traveling from human
> popular sites to less popular sites. The decontamination process is still
> being tested, and frankly I simply would not take clothes, boots, equipment
> in to a human popular cave and then use the same clothes and gear at
> another site at this point - one bat can carry 100,000 spores, so imagine
> what a human can transport. The decontamination protocol can be found on
> the fws website. NSS also has good WNS information on it's site and of
> course WBWG does as well. I've attached the wbwg recommendations, although
> they are already out of date given how quickly this stuff is spreading as
> the recommendations don't address moving between caves in The West. This
> will be updated at our conference in April. The links to these other key
> websites are included in the document. - Pat
>
>
> "Laughter is the closest distance between two people" Victor Borge
>
> Pat Ormsbee - R-6 Bat Specialist
> Willamette NF
> 3106 Pierce Parkway, Suite D
> Springfield, OR 97477
> [email protected]
>
> 541-225-6442
> c 541-954-0083
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
There was a famous (at the time, at least) cave rescue in Howards
Waterfall Cave, near Trenton in northwestern George back in 1966. A
party of Explorer Scouts set off an explosion of gasoline vapors that
had seeped into the cave from a leaking storage tank in a gas station.
Total of three fatalities; I believe at least one of them was a would-
be rescuer before the carbon-monoxide problem was recognized. The
rescue and recovery was difficult because the duration of the fire-
department's "air packs" was insufficient, although most of the air
packs in the Chattanooga area were eventually used. Scuba wasn't
nearly as common back then, and getting full scuba tanks was slow. I
think natural ventilation of the cave was mainly instrumental in
finally allowing the rescue of some trapped Scouts. Accidents
involving bad air often tend to have additional fatalities among
people who attempt a rescue without realizing the source of the
problem or the risks to themselves. This seems to be unfortunatly
frequent in various industrial situations, like cleaning storage tanks.
Most detailed description of that accident I've seen is in caver Don
Black's book "I Don't Play Golf: Recollections of a Rescue Voluneer,"
published, I suspect as an author-subsidized book, in 1993. -- Bill
Mixon
---------------------------------------------
He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest
benefactor the world has yet known. - Sir Richard Burton
----------------------------------------------
You may "reply" to the address this message
came from, but for long-term use, save:
Personal: [email protected]
AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected]
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Who do we need to contact about volunteering for helping with the two
banquets in July?
Preston and Shari Forsythe in Outer Browder
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--- Begin Message ---
Preston,
Who do we need to contact about volunteering for helping with the two banquets
in July?
That would be Linda Palit. This is from the message that was posted a
couple of weeks ago:
5) NSS and ICS Banquet Volunteers and Food Tasters
Contact: Linda Palit
[email protected]
NSS Banquet 2-3 hours that Friday, decorating, opening wine!
ICS Banquet 2-3 hours that Saturday, decorating and just helping out
--------------------------
See you there!
Mark Minton
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--- Begin Message ---
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090305-heaters-save-bats.html?source=rss
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Now there's a really dumb idea. If you heat up part of the cave, the
bats will just move and hibernate in some cooler place. They have to
hibernate in a suitably cool place in order to depress their
metabolisms enough. Where do they find these people? -- Mixon
---------------------------------------------
He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest
benefactor the world has yet known. - Sir Richard Burton
----------------------------------------------
You may "reply" to the address this message
came from, but for long-term use, save:
Personal: [email protected]
AMCS: [email protected] or [email protected]
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Bill Mixon said:
If you heat up part of the cave, the bats will just move and hibernate in some
cooler place. They have to hibernate in a suitably cool place in order to
depress their metabolisms enough.
As I understood that article, the plan is not to heat open areas of the
cave to warmer temperature, just the insides of bat boxes, which were described
as well insulated. The idea being that after a bat wakes up, it will seek a
warm place and find one of the boxes where it can go in and warm up. The
article stated that when they wanted to hibernate they would leave the vicinity
of the boxes, so the effects couldn't be too widespread. It would not be
practical to warm large areas of caves in any event.
Mark Minton
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
How on earth have bats managed to survive so long without thoughtful
human intervention? Or any other part of nature? Good thing we can
now remedy nature's poor planning. I wonder what the displacement
factor in the production of the heater boxes is - ie how many bats or
habitat does it cost environmentally to produce each of these things?
Nancy
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I think it is more about feeling good, than actually doing good...
Bill
Quoting Nancy Weaver <[email protected]>:
How on earth have bats managed to survive so long without thoughtful
human intervention? Or any other part of nature? Good thing we can
now remedy nature's poor planning. I wonder what the displacement
factor in the production of the heater boxes is - ie how many bats or
habitat does it cost environmentally to produce each of these things?
Nancy
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
On Fri, 6 Mar 2009 08:39:54 -0600 Nancy Weaver <[email protected]> writes:
How on earth have bats managed to survive so long without thoughtful
human intervention? Or any other part of nature? Good thing we can now
remedy nature's poor planning. I wonder what the displacement factor in
the production of the heater boxes is - ie how many bats or habitat does
it cost environmentally to produce each of these things?
Nancy
I can only hope that I missed the point of this email. However, if the
author is serious then the answer seems obvious to me.
Nature did fine without us and natural systems have been altered severely
by humans. In order to prevent some of the most extreme consequences of
human action, such as anthropogenic causes of the extinction of species,
then additional human intervention is required to counter other human
intervention.
As long as there is a significant human population, management is
required. Whatever it may be called, land management, ecosystem
management, or cave management, ultimately what is being managed is human
behavior.
A disclaimer: I have not read about the bat heaters and I am not
commenting on that particular strategy.
Philip L. Moss
[email protected]
____________________________________________________________
Hit it out of the park with a new bat. Click now!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTNfqHvZRK2P4ehx0w2gOed0bSn1nrVP0yJ1j7OBFiK0M245cwi8aU/
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--- Begin Message ---
Absolutely not!!!! Conservation money is in extremely short supply
right now, in this uncertain economy. Bat conservation is an even lower
funding priority than almost everything else I can think of. One of the
biggest hurdles in figuring out what is killing off 90% of all the bats
in the East (and soon, likely, the rest of the country), is the LACK of
money for necessary research. In fact, some of the very questions being
asked (such as "Are the bats going in to hibernation with adequate body
weight, or are they starving even before entering hibernation?" and "Is
this fungus actually a new species, or is it widespread and just never
identified until now?") are pretty simple baseline types of information
that we should have been collecting for years, if only we had unlimited
budgets to do the research to answer those kinds of questions. But the
reality is that we do not, and will not in the foreseeable future. Even
in Texas I can't tell you how many bats of what species we have in our
caves, because NO ONE IS DOING THAT RESEARCH. Even for the big, popular
freetail caves that obviously contribute to our environmental well-being
as well as our economic health, we only have a rough idea of numbers and
no clue about whether those populations are stable, declining, or
(unlikely) increasing. For other species, even the common cave myotis,
entire cave populations could be disappearing and we wouldn't even know.
So whatever efforts are being tried to stem the tide of WNS mortality,
you can bet there is at least a pretty good chance that it has a good
chance of success. We don't have the luxury of trying ideas that we
know are foolish.
Jim "Crash" Kennedy
Cave Resources Specialist
Bat Conservation International
... and passionate lover of all caves and their contents
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Bentley-Webmail [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 8:35 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] RE: heaters for bats
I think it is more about feeling good, than actually doing good...
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
You mean this isn't about concealed carry for bats?
T.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
anybody interested in the forwarded email.
would some considerate individual please pass this along to other caving
organizations in US
Rob
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Laura Romer <[email protected]>
List-Post: [email protected]
Date: Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 1:31 AM
Subject: Male Student from Belgium interested in caving
To: [email protected], [email protected]
My name is Laura Romer and I work for a non-profit organization called CCI.
We place international high school students who are coming to the US to
study high school here for a year. We have a young man from Belgium who is
extremely passionate about cave exploration and is a member of the
Speleology club at his school. He will be entering into school in the US in
August. He is a kind, curious, and determined young student. We would like
to place him with someone who shares his passion for Speleology. If you know
of anyone who would like to host this young man in their home for the
academic school year, please share this information with them. I look
forward to talking with you or them soon.
East Texas CCI Area Representative,
Laura Romer
903-705-8816
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Nancy Weaver said:
>How on earth have bats managed to survive so long without thoughtful human intervention? Or any other part of nature? Good thing we can now remedy nature's poor planning.
It might not have been nature's poor planning. No one knows where WNS came from. We don't know if it the fungus associated with WNS is the cause of the problem or a symptom, merely taking advantage of bats distressed by some other factor. If something else is weakening bats in the first place, it could be something manmade, like a pesticide. If we caused the problem, it is not unreasonable for us to try to remedy it, although obviously heated bat houses do not address the root cause, whatever it is. For another article on the heated bat houses see <http://blogs.discovery.com/news_animal/2009/03/hibernating-cave-bats-receive-heaters.html>.
Mark Minton
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
> I sortof like the scenario of bats developing into a co-dependent
> relationship with humans - like a parallel of the wolf's transformation
> into dogs - how about "Chiroptera Familiaris?"
>
> Imagine the range of Chihuahua to Great Dane
> applied to flying mammals!
>
> Look - I taught my bat to catch a frisbee!
>
> -Batmanuel
On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Minton, Mark <[email protected]> wrote:
> Nancy Weaver said:
>
> >How on earth have bats managed to survive so long without thoughtful
> human intervention? Or any other part of nature? Good thing we can now
> remedy nature's poor planning.
>
> It might not have been nature's poor planning. No one knows where
> WNS came from. We don't know if it the fungus associated with WNS is the
> cause of the problem or a symptom, merely taking advantage of bats
> distressed by some other factor. If something else is weakening bats in the
> first place, it could be something manmade, like a pesticide. If we caused
> the problem, it is not unreasonable for us to try to remedy it, although
> obviously heated bat houses do not address the root cause, whatever it is.
> For another article on the heated bat houses see <
> http://blogs.discovery.com/news_animal/2009/03/hibernating-cave-bats-receive-heaters.html
> >.
>
> Mark Minton
> --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit
> our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail:
> [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail:
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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Hey,
Did anyone who spouted off on this actually read the article first?
It's about attempting to mitigate the effects of white-nose syndrome,
which is decimating bat populations and has seen a lot of discussion
on this list. I'm surprised to see cavers being derisively laissez-
faire about it. Thanks, Crash, for the informative response.
Ed
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Greetings, cavers! This is Crash, your manic Auctioneer, here to drum
up support for the TCMA fundraising auction to be held Saturday 25 April
at Schreiner Park in Kerrville during the TSA Spring Convention. For
you past Auction attendees, you will recall how entertaining the Auction
can be, and how much really good stuff gets donated to sell. And it's
for a great cause: raising money to help pay off the mortgage to TCMA's
Carta Valley preserve, which holds the world-class Punkin and Deep
Caves. And we all know that cavers buying caves benefits us all! In
the past we have auctioned off brand new ropes, historic caving
ephemera, new caving and camping gear, weekends at nice B&Bs, ultralight
airplane flights, hardcore (and softcore) cave trips, home-brewed beer,
original artwork, and so much more. Last year I believe we raised over
$3700. This year we are pushing to finish paying off the mortgage for
the Punkin and Deep property, so we want to make this auction even
better! We need some volunteers to solicit, store, and transport
donations to the Convention site. We need cavers like yourselves to
donate items to sell, or talk to your local businesses for donations of
items (or money) to help with this fundraiser. And, of course, we need
all of you to come to the Convention, and bid on items during the
Auction. Contact me, Joe Ranzau (Auction treasurer), or any other TCMA
board member if you have questions or would like to volunteer
(http://www.tcmacaves.org). We'll have fun, there will be some
surprises, and we'll help secure two great caves for our use. I hope to
see you there, and remember, bid high, and bid often!
Jim "Crash" Kennedy
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you
--- End Message ---
