All,
On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, our SWR Vice-Chair, Jim Evatt notified the
membership in the SWR, through the SWR mailing list, that a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request had been filed by the SWR for information
related to the BLM's management of the threat of White Nose Syndrome (WNS).
This act, arguably the most significant act taken by the SWR for a generation,
is the result of a string of events over the last several years. I want to
give the membership some of the background that led up to this request.
As most everyone knows, WNS is a debilitating condition that has
affected hibernating bats, primarily in the eastern United States and Canada,
causing very high mortality rates in the bat colonies from the fungus that
causes it. (P. destructans). The first evidence of WNS came from Howe Caverns,
a commercial cave in New York, in 2007. An initial thought was that perhaps
a caver from Europe possibly brought this fungus to the United States by
visiting the cave with clothes that were contaminated with the fungus. As more
and more evidence accumulated of the devastating effects of WNS to bats, the US
Fish and Wlldlife Service developed guidelines for the various cave management
agencies to use regarding the potential spread of WNS. These guidelines
included recommendations to close caves and abandoned mines to human entry
because of the possibility that humans may be a significant vector to the
transmission of the condition.
In January of 2011, the NM BLM published a Federal Register Notice of
Temporary Closure of 28 caves in New Mexico known to have significant bat
populations, probably as a direct result of a report of an infected bat in the
neighboring state of Oklahoma. That Temporary Closure was for 2 years only
and expired in January of 2013. At the 2012 Winter Tech, Ms. Marikay Ramsey
(BLM bat biologist) announced the intent of the BLM to renew the closure. In
January of 2013, at a special meeting in Albuquerque, Jim Goodbar, National BLM
Cave Program lead, again discussed that intent, and also mentioned that 3 of
the caves previously closed would be re-opened. The BLM revealed that it was
delegating the management of caving activities under the threat of WNS to a
state-wide Cave Management Team.
Cavers waited for the announcement that the Temporary Closure was being
renewed, or that a new Temporary Closure was being instituted. This didn't
happen (and hasn't happened to date). Instead, the BLM merely said that the
caves are "closed". Cavers inquiring about the "closure" were told that BLM
didn't need to have a Federal Register Temporary Closure because the cave
specialists could merely refuse to issue permits.
This management plan, if it can be called that, for the BLM caves that
were previously closed by Federal Register Notice persisted for another year,
as cavers became increasingly dissatisfied with how the caves were being
managed. Meanwhile more research was being done on WNS; research that
demonstrated that bats were very good at transmitting WNS from one to another,
but that humans ere not very good at spreading the fungus. In fact, we know of
no credible evidence that WNS has been spread from one cave to another by
humans.
At the spring SWR regional on April 12, 2014 there was a significant
discussion of the BLM's continuing stand that they could close the caves by
just saying they are closed and what to do about it. One idea was to ask for
permits for some of the closed caves in order to bring the issue to the
forefront. This was done by several folks, including Dave Belski and Stephen
Fleming, who both requested recreational permits to Fort Stanton Cave. Both
were denied.
On May 6, 2014 the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation
announced that the previous report of a WNS bat in Oklahoma was a false report,
and that no WNS infected bats had been detected in New Mexico. On May 9, BLM's
Chief of Communications issued this statement to the SWR mailing list:
BLM New Mexico White-Nose Syndrome Closure Strategy Update
May 2014
BLM New Mexico is evaluating the new information released by the
National Wildlife Health Center about the Woodward County, Oklahoma bat
originally tested in 2010 being now reclassified as negative
forPseudogymnoascus (formerly Geomyces) destructans and White-nose syndrome
(WNS).
At this time, we are sustaining our WNS cave and abandoned mine closure
strategy. The BLM’s team of biologists, cave specialists, and managers will
work internally, as well as with our NM interagency partners, to consider the
new Oklahoma findings.
The BLM is the responsible party for managing hundreds of New Mexico
caves and abandoned mines and their resources. We will continue to do so by
using the best available science and by following laws, regulations, and
national BLM guidance to minimize risk and impacts to these resources.
Moving forward, we will consider WNS’s significant movement westward in
the past four years, the number of caves open for recreation vs. those closed
on public lands in New Mexico (about 1,000 open to 25 closed), and the fact
that even our closed caves have managed access for scientific and
administrative purposes.
We will proceed thoughtfully and scientifically to determine the future
of our WNS strategy. We are committed to keeping cavers and the general public
advised of any changes to our policy.
Many cavers, including myself, sent e-mails to various responsible
folks in BLM management encouraging a dialog on the topic of the continuing
management of these caves. To my knowledge NONE of those e-mails were
responded to, not even by a courtesy reply.
Meanwhile, cavers and SWR members Dave Belski and Stephen Fleming
considered their options regarding the denial of their recreational permit
requests. They were formulating a response that would attempt to elicit the
reasons why these caves were closed. As they formulated the questions, it
became obvious that what was really necessary was a FOIA request. Fleming, a
retired BLM law enforcement officer, wrote the request, initially as his own
request as a private citizen. After getting the majority of the request
written, he shared it with others, including me. After reading the request, I
realized that this FOIA request reflects the interests and concerns of the
caving community at large and should be a request of the caving community. I
petitioned the SWR leadership, the executive committee of Peg Sorensen (chair),
Jim Evatt (vice-chair), Dave Belski (secretary) and Blake Jordan (treasurer) to
name Fleming as a special representative of the SWR and allow him to file this
FOIA request on behalf of the SWR. They agreed that this was in the best
interests of the region and named him the Federal Liaison. On Monday morning,
May 18 the FOIA request on behalf of the SWR was filed with the BLM's FOIA
coordinator at the state office, with copies to several BLM management folks.
As I said earlier, this is probably the most significant action taken
by the SWR in this generation. It is an action not taken lightly, and is not
intended to discredit or demean the cave management efforts of the BLM, but to
bring those efforts to the light of day so that all may understand how
decisions were made. If the scientific evidence exists that closure of the
caves is effective in preventing the spread of WNS then we want to see it. If
the evidence exists that WNS is moving rapidly towards New Mexico, we want to
see it.
This should be an opportunity to clean the slate of recent cave
management practices by the BLM in New Mexico. When the evidence is there for
us to examine, can we proceed with a plan, incorporating the scientific
evidence now available, that appropriately protects our bats, but also provides
appropriate access to the caves that the BLM has closed? I encourage everyone
to comment and/or voice your concerns or approval of the action that the SWR
leadership has taken. They have done this on your behalf. If you agree with
it, let them that they have done the right thing.
Steve Peerman
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from
the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
attributed to Mark Twain, but no record exists of his having written this.
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