Tennessee Artificial Bat Cave - A good Idea?

[Brian Roebuck]

No doubt many have read about Tennessee Nature Conservancies idea to win a Pepsi "Great Ideas" contest by getting enough votes to win $250,000 in order to build an artificial bat cave in Montgomery County TN next to a known bat hibernaculum cave. The purpose of this structure is for conducting research on White Nose Syndrome (WNS) affecting bats in Tennessee as well as the US and Canada. The idea has some serious issues that should be considered before throwing support in its direction however as it appears to be an incomplete concept with no funding, scientific support, or well thought out experiments. Since WNS is already an immense problem quick and decisive actions must be taken to minimize the damage to bat populations – if this can even be done. An unfunded large scale loosely planned experiment does not appear to be a step in the right direction.

I have previously expressed some of my concerns in several public places on the net with the goal of getting more information to and from concerned people about this project that can be summarized at the link below:

drbeaner.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/artificial-tennessee-bat-cave-proposed-by-tnc/