Cave closures to save bats create misgivings

ROGERS -- Owners of private "show caves" in Northwest Arkansas are hoping the closure of caves on U.S. Forest Service land won't keep tourists away from their attractions.

Last Monday, the U.S. Forest Service announced cave closures in national forests will be extended through 2019, as part of an ongoing effort to fight the spread of the white nose syndrome fungus, which is tied to the deaths of more than 5 million bats in the United States since it was first detected in New England in 2007.

The fungus is not harmful to humans.

In January, the first white nose syndrome fatalities in Arkansas were detected in a Marion County cave.

Another fatality was detected outside Blanchard Springs Cavern, a government-owned show cave located about 5 miles from Mountain View inside the Ozark National Forest.

The closures don't extend to caves on privately owned lands, and the Forest Service even makes exceptions for some government-owned show caves on public land, including Blanchard Springs Cavern.

But private cave owners such as Dennis Boyer, co-owner of War Eagle Cavern in Beaver Lake, said that public confusion over the ban could hobble their businesses.

"When an article like this hits, it's devastating," Boyer said Wednesday.

Boyer said he and his staff typically receive about 40 to 50 phone calls from prospective visitors each day, and most of the calls he had received since the announcement had been to ask whether the cave was now closed.

"And that's just the ones that call," Boyer said. "Probably a lot of them don't call. They just change their plans."

According to the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism, there are eight show caves in the state.

Joe David Rice, tourism director for the department, said that while tourism remains one of the state's top revenue generators, the department doesn't maintain data on what portion of that revenue is generated by show caves.

Boyer said about 30,000 people visit War Eagle Cavern each year, although not all of them tour the cave.

Charging $15 for adults and $9 for children older than 4, Boyer said cave tours have brought in about $300,000 in revenue annually for the past several years.

Concerns that the blanket closure of public caves will cost private-business owners revenue are mixed with doubts that the closures -- which may impede humans but certainly not bats or other animals -- are even an effective strategy, Boyer and others said.

Randy Langhover, owner of Cosmic Caverns near Berryville, said that even if the cave closures could segregate bat populations, it wouldn't affect the spread of the disease.

"Most bats don't live in caves in state parks. They're in barns and attics and trees and everywhere else," Langhover said.

"And yet, they're not closing the bridges, they're not closing the barns, they're not closing the courthouses or any of the other places bats go to.

"Just strictly the caves, and that's not where they live."

The basic question of whether humans are contributing to the spread of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome in any meaningful way is still a matter of debate within the scientific community.

Both critics and supporters of the closure policy agree that bat-to-bat contact is the primary vector for transmission of the fungus but differ as to whether allowing humans in caves may speed up the spread of the fungus to new caves ahead of bat migrations.

Jeremy Coleman, national white nose syndrome coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said modern transportation contributes to the threat posed by humans spreading the fungus.

"The concern we have about human-mediated transmission of the fungus is that we can move the fungus greater distances than the bats are likely to move it in a similar time frame," Coleman said.

"It's the 'big jump' scenario, moving the fungus from Arkansas to Colorado or Oregon, that's going to exacerbate the problem."

Tom Aley, a former hydrologist with the U.S. Forest Service and current president of Ozark Underground Laboratory in Protem, Mo., said the federal government's initial finding that humans were responsible for the transmission of the fungus was due to a lack of precautions while conducting research.

"Some people probably were helping to spread it, and those were the bat researchers trying to figure out what was going on because they weren't doing any decontamination," Aley said.

"Very early, the strategy was adopted to stop the spread by keeping people out of caves.

"It didn't work on a small scale. It's not going to work on a big scale.

"Only a tiny fraction of caves in any given state are on federal lands. It's a regulation that essentially has no chance of doing any good."

Despite the fact that one of the few white nose syndrome fatalities in Arkansas was discovered near a natural entrance to the Blanchard Springs Cavern, the attraction has remained open to visitors.

C.J. Norvell, a Forest Service spokesman, said administrators at the cave use a two-step process to decontaminate visitors' shoes at the facility, involving thickly carpeted pads to brush away any fungus spores that may cling to shoes, and a "Woolite-like" detergent solution to kill any remaining spores.

Langhover said the Forest Service's decision to keep government-owned show caves on public lands open made him doubt the sincerity of the action.

"As much as they want to shut down caves, none of the government-operated caves ever ceased operation by any means. They're selling tickets; they've got guides," Langhover said.

Norvell said the Forest Service's decision to extend the closure of the approximately 800 caves on national forest lands in Arkansas, while keeping Blanchard Springs Cavern open for business, was rational because of the site's decontamination procedures.

"We can't possibly put signs and bars across all the caves we have out there," Norvell said. "We think our best defense is to let people know what's going on and why.

"We think people are still caving, but people are taking a tremendous risk, because people who explore caves tend to go from one to the next.

"People who come through Blanchard tend to be tourists -- they're not going to another cave."

NW News on 07/07/2014