Post by L Roebuck on Jul 17, 2006 7:50:46 GMT -5
Going to bat for a rare breed of bats
VOLUNTEERS CART STOVES AND TIRES FROM PULASKI CAVE
By Jillian Ogawa
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
SHOPVILLE - Holy trash can, Batman! What's in the bat cave?
Refrigerators, and stoves, and chairs, and tires, and a weed whacker -- and that's just the top layer of a 45-foot mound of garbage that has filled an old saltpeter pit near here.
About 500 rare Rafinesque's big-eared bats hibernate from fall to spring in a cave at the pit. The trash buildup could eventually prevent them from returning to the cave or could trap them inside it.
"It's one of the worst," Rose Sisler, 16, said of the dump. "Somehow, those bats are still living in there."
Volunteers in hard hats rappelled into the 80-foot-deep pit over the weekend to begin clearing garbage.
The cave at the bottom of the pit is about 2,000 feet long, said David Foster, executive director of the American Cave Conservation Association, based in Horse Cave. Saltpeter mined here was used to make gunpowder during the War of 1812, he said.
Last November, a team from Bat Conservation International was exploring old saltpeter caves throughout Kentucky to track the historical population of bats. The team found the cluster of bats -- named for early 19th-century Transylvania University professor C.S. Rafinesque -- hibernating in the cave near Shopville.
"Cavers nicknamed it 'Mount Trashmore,'" Foster said.
The state considers the species to be threatened.
Its nursery colonies usually are made up of from four to 50 bats. The saltpeter cave contains the third-largest known cluster of Rafinesque's in Kentucky, Foster said.
The cave and bat conservation organizations, other non-profit organizations and companies raised money for the cleanup, whose $25,000 cost includes donated materials and time.
Volunteers built a steel lift on site to lift trash and then haul it into trash bins. The cleanup will run for about 10 more days.
After the cleanup is finished, a cave gate will be placed to prevent trash from being thrown into the pit, but still allow bats to fly through. Air flow, humidity, and temperature will also be tracked because bats need to hibernate in a stable environment, said Lee Florea, one of the directors of the National Speleological Society.
"We try to manage those caves as much as we can because many bat species are close to extinction," Florea said. "That's why it is important to know what they need."
Dumping trash in sinkholes is a problem volunteer DeWayne Hyatt has seen frequently.
People "see it as a hole in the ground and use it as a trash pile," Hyatt said. He and his wife, Karen Garland, came from Burlington to help with the cleanup.
They fear the trash will also affect the underground water supply.
"The continual dumping of trash in inappropriate areas is going to hurt generations to come," Garland said.
For more information on volunteering or other projects, call the American Cave Conservation Association at (270) 786-1466.
Article: www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/local/15054904.htm
VOLUNTEERS CART STOVES AND TIRES FROM PULASKI CAVE
By Jillian Ogawa
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
SHOPVILLE - Holy trash can, Batman! What's in the bat cave?
Refrigerators, and stoves, and chairs, and tires, and a weed whacker -- and that's just the top layer of a 45-foot mound of garbage that has filled an old saltpeter pit near here.
About 500 rare Rafinesque's big-eared bats hibernate from fall to spring in a cave at the pit. The trash buildup could eventually prevent them from returning to the cave or could trap them inside it.
"It's one of the worst," Rose Sisler, 16, said of the dump. "Somehow, those bats are still living in there."
Volunteers in hard hats rappelled into the 80-foot-deep pit over the weekend to begin clearing garbage.
The cave at the bottom of the pit is about 2,000 feet long, said David Foster, executive director of the American Cave Conservation Association, based in Horse Cave. Saltpeter mined here was used to make gunpowder during the War of 1812, he said.
Last November, a team from Bat Conservation International was exploring old saltpeter caves throughout Kentucky to track the historical population of bats. The team found the cluster of bats -- named for early 19th-century Transylvania University professor C.S. Rafinesque -- hibernating in the cave near Shopville.
"Cavers nicknamed it 'Mount Trashmore,'" Foster said.
The state considers the species to be threatened.
Its nursery colonies usually are made up of from four to 50 bats. The saltpeter cave contains the third-largest known cluster of Rafinesque's in Kentucky, Foster said.
The cave and bat conservation organizations, other non-profit organizations and companies raised money for the cleanup, whose $25,000 cost includes donated materials and time.
Volunteers built a steel lift on site to lift trash and then haul it into trash bins. The cleanup will run for about 10 more days.
After the cleanup is finished, a cave gate will be placed to prevent trash from being thrown into the pit, but still allow bats to fly through. Air flow, humidity, and temperature will also be tracked because bats need to hibernate in a stable environment, said Lee Florea, one of the directors of the National Speleological Society.
"We try to manage those caves as much as we can because many bat species are close to extinction," Florea said. "That's why it is important to know what they need."
Dumping trash in sinkholes is a problem volunteer DeWayne Hyatt has seen frequently.
People "see it as a hole in the ground and use it as a trash pile," Hyatt said. He and his wife, Karen Garland, came from Burlington to help with the cleanup.
They fear the trash will also affect the underground water supply.
"The continual dumping of trash in inappropriate areas is going to hurt generations to come," Garland said.
For more information on volunteering or other projects, call the American Cave Conservation Association at (270) 786-1466.
Article: www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/local/15054904.htm
