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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 22, 2006 23:49:19 GMT -5
Al Hoota cave project opening in NovemberTimes Of Oman Monday, October 23, 2006 MUSCAT — The tentative opening of the Al Hoota cave project would be held only in November, and not during the Eid Al Fitr holidays as published in the media earlier, a press release from Promo Oman said here yesterday. Promo Oman is a Lebanese-Omani joint company assigned by the Ministry of Tourism to manage and market the Al Hoota cave project situated in Al Hamra region. ArticleMore on Al Hoota Cave
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 21, 2006 12:23:21 GMT -5
Austin Cave Festival Austin Chronicle News Naked City HOME: OCTOBER 20, 2006: NEWS
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 21, 2006 12:03:26 GMT -5
Park board renames Doling Park cavePublished Saturday, October 21, 2006 Springfield News-Leader The Springfield-Greene County Park Board will hold a ceremony at 10 a.m. today at the cave entrance at Doling Park, 301 E. Talmage St., for the naming of Giboney Cave at Doling Park. The cave land has a rich history within the community, dating back to the mid-1800s when Alexander Giboney purchased the property in his two sons' names, James and John Giboney. The 40-acre purchase included the cave, which was used to store food throughout the year. The property was sold to the Doling family in the early 1900s and then deeded to the Springfield-Greene County Park Board. The board now owns the 55.8-acre parcel of land, which today is Doling Park. The park board uses the cave for cave clinics, environmental and nature education, and public and group cave tours. Inhabitants of the cave include eastern pipistrelle and little brown bats; bristly cave crayfish; Pickerel frogs; camel crickets; and five species of salamanders. The cave has numerous small formations, highlighted by rimestone flowstone pools. Article: www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061021/NEWS01/610210334/1007/NEWS01
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 21, 2006 0:44:40 GMT -5
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 20, 2006 18:56:03 GMT -5
Inside Pennsylvania: Touring the Stalactite CircuitBy DAVE CALDWELL Published: October 13, 2006 The New York Times photo by Susana Raab for The New York Times ROCK SHOWS Kris Van Deventer, an owner of Coral Caverns, gives a tour with her young son, Max. NO more than 10 minutes into our 20-minute tour of Coral Caverns, near the hamlet of Manns Choice in central Pennsylvania, our teenage guide recited in a midafternoon monotone that the fossils garnishing a reddish cave wall were creatures on an ocean floor some 410 million years ago. New York Times Graphic Minutes later, she noted that stalactites grow (if you want to call it growing) from the cave ceiling at about one cubic inch every hundred years. She used these statistics to remind us that the cave had been around a lot longer than we had. She was bumming me out. There is nothing like a cave to make a person feel truly mortal, as fleeting as the wind. The delicate yet ancient formations in a cave make the mind spin like a dog chasing its tail; and stalactites are mere babies compared with the fossils. At the same time, there is nothing like a cave to cause a puny human to marvel at earth’s grandeur. A person who wanders into a dark, cool cave can peek at (but not touch) exotic geological forms that seem spawned at the beginning of time. Ribbed by the Allegheny Mountains, Pennsylvania has nine so-called show caves, caves with lights, steps and gravel-covered passageways so that people can take guided tours; the state is tied with South Dakota for third most in the country, after Missouri (16) and California (11). For the same reason that Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest, my girlfriend, Dena, my 8-year-old son, Danny, and I recently toured six of the Pennsylvania nine in two whirlwind days. We probably could have ducked into all nine, but we had to drive 250 miles from North Jersey to get to our first stop, Coral Caverns. We lost even more time because we practically needed a spelunker to find Coral Caverns, which has few signs pointing the way. We finally found the entrance, taking a gravel back road that ran past a rusted-out railroad car to the office, which looked more like a cabin than a place of business. Full Article: travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/13/travel/escapes/13caves.html?ref=travel
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 20, 2006 18:36:28 GMT -5
Boy rescued from caveFriday, 20th October, 2006 The New Vision (Uganda) By Zulugama Mujojo and Raymond Baguma BIG HEART: A lady supports the boy to standRESIDENTS of Kenkombe village in Mbarara district have rescued a boy who had reportedly lived in a cave for years. On October 4, the area LC1 chairman, George Mwesigye, led villagers and armed local defence officers to the cave believed to have been a wild animals’ hideout, according to a report in The New Vision’s sister paper, Orumuri. This followed concerns by residents that they had on numerous occasions encountered a strange creature moving in the bush at night. According to herdsmen, the boy used to eat grass and cow dung. They alerted Mwesigye about the boy fearing that he could be a bandit. The boy, whose name is not yet known, has a scaly-hairy skin, overgrown nails, stained teeth and cannot walk or stand without support. He crawls. The boy is now under the care of an elderly woman, Florisca Nakafeero, and LDU officer, Stephen. Nakafeero said the boy does not drink water and howls like a wild animal. “He does not speak the local Runyakore dialect,” she said. She appealed to good Samaritans to give her assistance to take care of the boy. Article: www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/19/527714
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 18, 2006 8:43:24 GMT -5
Daytripping in the darkness of caves -- speleologist to give program Burr Williams<br>MRT Correspondent Midland Reporter-Telegram 10/18/2006 What is it about caves? When I am daytripping around with folks, I often hear "Look at that cave -- let's go explore it. I wonder what is in it?" There seems to be an instinctual pull in humans to go investigate? Is it something deep in our subconscious -- a shared "memory" of a time where caves were the best homes for us? No matter what age of the person I am with, the majority of them have been drawn to caves. Personally, I prefer overhangs. The dark recesses of caves spook me. When I am camping in rugged backcountry, I look for the places where cliffs loom over a hollowed out space, where I can get out of inclement weather. I usually find that I am not the first to find such places. In front of overhangs are often the plants useful to hunter-gatherers. Food and medicinal plants often dominate the area around an overhang. Unless a cave has a large anteroom at the entrance, I have not found such proliferation of useful plants in front of caves. This makes me wonder if caves were ever considered "home" for hunter-gatherers. As demonstrated by the famous cave paintings of France and those other locations, caves were more of a place for "religion." Caves were places where cultural "mysteries" were taught. Full Article: www.mywesttexas.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17342689&BRD=2288&PAG=461&dept_id=475590&rfi=6
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 17, 2006 19:37:29 GMT -5
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 17, 2006 18:42:06 GMT -5
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 17, 2006 18:24:13 GMT -5
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Post by jonsdigs on Oct 11, 2006 19:40:41 GMT -5
Gargantuan cave a world of its ownBy Daniel Wood-Contributing writer Vancouver Courier Massive stalactites fill Wind Cave, one of the four huge caves in Mulu National Park. Photo-Daniel Wood Sarawak, Malaysia-Leaving Long Bedian, a village in Sarawak's interior, a riverside trail leads into the proverbial heart of darkness. The humid jungle of Malaysian Borneo crowds the route. The smell is fecund, the shadows ominous. The air is filled with the drilling of cicadas and the mind with thoughts of bloodsucking leeches. It's at the end of an hour's hike-on much-appreciated, raised boardwalks-that we reach the famous caves of Mulu National Park. Today, visitors can follow pathways into four of the caves, although the world's largest chamber, Sarawak Cave, is off-limits to any except certified spelunkers. However, the illuminated pathway into suitably named Clearwater Cave follows a pristine river for part of its 100-kilometre underground route. Wind Cave contains hundreds of massive limestone stalactites, shaped like melted, upside-down candles. But it's at the entrance to gargantuan Deer Cave-the second-largest cave in the world-that the words spoken by an exiting park ranger to our guide, James, give pause. "Big snake in there. Jaga! Jaga!" We've learned enough Malaysian to know that "Jaga! Jaga!" means "Be careful!" "What kind of snake?" one of us asks. James tells us it would likely be a cave racer. "A racer!" "Not so fast really. Quite slow," he says reassuringly. In a further attempt to comfort us, he tells us it's small-less than two metres long. To triply comfort us, he adds its bite produces cramps and paralysis, but certainly not death. We are not comforted. We know that, were we forced to flee, we'd be slowed by the pudding-like consistency of the bat guano and the gadzillions of cockroaches that swarm at either edge of the cave's concrete path. The cave's scorpions, James had cautioned earlier, are poisonous but not deadly. Ditto the centipedes. The earwigs are merely an annoyance when they fall on visitors' heads. "The thing you have to watch out for is the spiders," James confesses. "Very bad." The natives use crushed spiders as the poison on their blowpipe dart-tips. James adds that the spiders are small and black and fast. Full Story: www.vancourier.com/issues06/102106/travel.html
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Post by jonsdigs on Sept 28, 2006 0:33:05 GMT -5
Elderly man enjoys living in cave (China Daily) Updated: 2006-09-28 08:56
A 94-year-old man was recently found to have lived in a cave for two decades in suburban Wuming County of Nanning, the capital of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Wei Guzhang found the cave 20 years ago while he was putting out cattle. He found it cool and immediately liked the cave, settling down there after moving some simple furniture in.
He said he seldom fell ill after he moved to the cave. Currently Wei has no plan to move away.
Nanguo Morning Post
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Post by jonsdigs on Mar 16, 2008 8:47:16 GMT -5
Bats still hang in there despite many ordealsMario Xuereb The Age (AU) March 16, 2008 Numbers down: one of Melbourne's flying foxes. Photo: Rebecca HallasMELBOURNE'S bat colony has shrunk to its lowest level in more than a decade on the back of last year's cold winter, but animal activists say local numbers will probably recover. Flying fox numbers continue to decline across eastern Australia due to habitat loss, but individual colony numbers fluctuate between seasons. The Department of Sustainability and Environment said Melbourne's grey-headed flying fox colony at Yarra Bend park peaks at around 30,000 animals in summer and can fall to around 8000 in winter when most fly north to escape the cold. Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Dec 20, 2007 20:24:39 GMT -5
Bats make life hell for familiesDaily Examiner (NZ) 12/20/2007 EACH day before the sun comes up 72-year-old Brian Johnson gets out of bed to turn on his front and back verandah lights to ward off invaders. He then has some quick breakfast and returns outside to clean up the mess left by those invaders he was not able to keep away. This has been the Maclean resident's daily routine since a colony of flying foxes moved in near his Cameron Street property in August this year. He is sick of it. The tree canopy in neighbouring vacant land is becoming increasingly denuded and there is constant smell and screeching. He cleans more than 60 pieces of excrement daily, and that is without going near the roof. Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Aug 23, 2007 4:57:58 GMT -5
Scientists trace the Marburg virus in fruit batsAfrican Press Agency 8/22/07 Kampala (Uganda) Fruit bats roosting in caves in Kamwenge district of southwestern Uganda have been identified as the source of the Marburg virus, which killed one person and infected two last month. A team of scientists from the World Health Organization and the United States Centers for Disease Control, reported on Wednesday that tests of 1,100 bats of various species indicated that only one common species of fruit bat carried the Marburg Virus. A study on the virus published in the latest issue of Public Library of Science Journal suggests that Marburg may be more common than previously thought. The Marburg virus was found in the species Rousettus aegyptiacus, a common type of fruit bat that lives in caves at gold mines in Kamwenge, where the three infected men worked. Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 28, 2007 0:17:56 GMT -5
Picky Eating Potentially Perilous For BatsScience Daily July 28, 2007 Researchers at Indiana State University say that what you eat really does matter -- especially if you are a bat that dines largely on insects. Fruit bat in flight. (Credit: Stockphoto/Gijs Bekenkamp) Working in the Department of Ecology and Organismal Biology, Justin Boyles and Jonathan Storm examined the possibility of a link between dietary specialization and the risk of extinction for bats in Australia, Europe and North America. Their study, published in the July 25 edition of the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, indicates that "species of conservation concern often have a more specialized diet than common species," said Boyles. Additional analyses show that dietary breadth is not related to either geographic range size or wing structure, characteristics previously found to be associated with extinction risk in bats. Previous research has shown that habitat loss, roost availability, and gregariousness influence the extinction risk of bats, but the Indiana State study suggests that dietary specialization may also play a role. "The link between dietary specialization and extinction risk seems intuitive, so it is surprising that previous studies have failed to find this relationship," said Storm Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 22, 2007 10:13:50 GMT -5
Early risers search for batsBy Adam Forrest Sunday Herald (Scotland) WILDLIFE LOVERS rose extra early yesterday as part of a campaign aimed at discovering why so many baby bats are being found grounded or dead. People across Scotland were encouraged to look around an hour before sunrise for bats heading back to roost. Calls to the national bat helpline are expected to reach record levels this summer as an increasing number of people find tiny baby bats struggling in their homes and gardens. Bad weather has been blamed for the phenomena, but conservationists are keen to build up a better picture of the location of bat species to properly assess the problem. Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 21, 2007 17:05:34 GMT -5
Family routed by batsRodents take up residence in North ChicagoLake County News-Sun (IL) July 20, 2007 By JUDY MASTERSON jmasterson@scn1.com NORTH CHICAGO -- A North Chicago woman claims bats have driven her family from their rental home at 1218 Argonne Drive. Latonya Woods Tanner said bats -- little brown ones and big, fuzzy gray ones -- have made themselves at home in the brick two story she has rented since the fall of 2005. Not only have they been nesting in the attic, they have moved to the downstairs, where they have taken to hanging on her curtains, dangling from her potted trees and strafing her lovely furniture with what Tanner calls "bat juice." Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 6, 2007 19:03:03 GMT -5
Running With the Bats – No Bull!Radisson Press Release July 06, 2007 Bat Run 5K Takes Off At the Radisson® Hotels and Suites AustinAUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--No bulls allowed! That’s right, folks will be running with the bats this Friday the 13th as RunTex and the Radisson Hotel & Suites Austin Town Lake host the second annual Bat Run 5K benefiting Bat Conservation International. Austin is home to approximately 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats who make an honest living hanging-out under the Congress Avenue Bridge and like many Austin entertainers, wake up at about 7 p.m. to put on a free live show. The Congress Avenue bat flight is an Austin tradition. Spectators gather along the banks of Town Lake waiting for that magical moment when the sky grows pink, crickets begin to hum and a black trickle of bats begins to flow up into the night sky -- then a stream, then a winding endless wave of fluttering wings. “We are proud to support bat conservation, and are honored to host the event,” says Radisson General Manager Tom Schurr. “The hotel is located right in front of the Congress Avenue Bridge and our guests have a perfect view of the nightly bat flight. It’s a ‘must see’ for many of our guests, and it’s a part of Austin they take home with them.” Schurr encourages everyone, supporters, runners and walkers, to come out from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Friday, July 13 to enjoy the night, enjoy great food and live music and support bat conservation. Runners and walkers will line up at the corner of Brazos and Cesar Chavez at 7:00 p.m. Rotel and the Hot Tomatoes, the spicy female musical ensemble, will play at the post-race party at the Radisson Hotel. “It’s guaranteed to be a get-your-heart-thumping event,” says Schurr. The Radisson will provide food and Heineken will provide beer for the event. Visit www.batrun5k.com for event details and registration. Or go by any Run Tex to register. The cost is $25 for adults and $15 for children 12 and under. Bat Conservation International (BCI) is an organization created to protect bats all over the world, including those found under the Congress Avenue Bridge. Established in 1982 by Dr. Merlin Tuttle, BCI has been devoted to researching bats and the ecosystems they serve. From its origin in Austin, Texas, the organization has spread across 70 countries and currently stands over 14,000 members strong. Full Release
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 6, 2007 18:55:50 GMT -5
Wild Rabid Bat Found At Maryland ZooJul 5, 2007 By Denise Koch (WJZ) BALTIMORE The Maryland Zoo is asking for the public's help in locating any guests who may have come in contact with a bat. Timmy Knapp found something unusual Monday on the path leading to the elephant overlook at the Maryland Zoo. Denise Koch reports he found a tiny red bat. Timmy found the tiny red bat and decided to save it. So, he picked it up with a stick and took it to the attendant. "So I picked up the leaf and then it fell on the rock and I said don't die, don't die," said Timmy. "He has such a tender heart. He wants to take care of everything. He did not want that bat to die," said Carol Knapp, Timmy's grandmother. What Timmy did not know was the wild bat had rabies. Later, the bat was tested and Tuesday night his family got an unwelcomed call. They were told the bat had rabies. They said he did not have to bite Timmy to expose him. Unlike other animals, bats can spread rabies through the air. "This was a wild bat and not part of our collection. While bats are very beneficial animals, it is not uncommon for wild bats to carry rabies," said Karl Kranz, Vice President for Animal Programs and Chief Operating Officer. Timmy got four shots Tuesday night and he has three to go. His grandma says he was very brave. "It was kinda creepy, but amazing," said Timmy. The zoo is calling Timmy a hero because he picked up the bat before others could be exposed. Story & Video
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 6, 2007 8:02:18 GMT -5
Finding secrets of bats' flight could change military aircraftBy Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff | July 6, 2007 WASHINGTON -- Since the Wright brothers took to the skies a century ago, aerospace engineers have studied bird flight as the baseline for designing aircraft. But a special Pentagon research project underway in Providence could change that. A team of engineers and biologists at Brown University has discovered that bats, the mysterious nocturnal mammals that are guided by sound and helped inspire Dracula and Batman, may hold the secret to more efficient flying machines. The Air Force has taken notice of Brown's work. It will invest $6 million in the project over the next 2 1/2 years, in the hope of using the research to design future military aircraft. Research so far has found that bats can carry up to 50 percent of their weight and execute airborne maneuvers that would make a bird or plane fall out of the sky. Moreover, scientists believe the hundreds of tiny sensors covering bat wings could be the key to their most impressive airborne maneuvers, a discovery that engineers could replicate with networks of sensors and computers on military aircraft. Full Story
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Post by jonsdigs on Jul 4, 2007 15:28:53 GMT -5
Things That Don’t Go Bump in the NightJuly 3, 2007 By R. Craig Hensley Special to LIVE! The nightly emergence of a huge population of bats near San Antonio spirals out of Bracken Cave, home to estimated 20 million bats. The biological landmark is owned by Bat Conservation International, and contains the largest mammal population anywhere in the world. The emergence occurs over a full six-hour period every night. (Contributed photo/R. Craig Hensley) Bats. Simply hearing their name brings fear to the hearts of many. Images of dark places—caves where they swirl in mass numbers, waiting ‘till dark when they can descend on society and suck the blood of unsuspecting people, fill the minds of the young and old alike. Bats blindly flying to and fro, getting stuck in your hair, and every one of them carrying rabies. Oh my! The truth is, many bats do reside in dark places, they can roost in very large numbers, and yes, even a small percentage of bats carry rabies. Getting stuck in your hair? Hardly. Flying blind? Not a chance! Feeding on the blood of humans? Well, perhaps in the movies, but certainly not in Texas. It turns out that the mythology of bats is far more dreadful than the reality. The truth is that bats play a number of critical roles in nature, from pollination and seed dispersal to eating incalculable numbers of insects. Full Story
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