Thanks for the clarification, Jim. How much will the TPWD position impact the policies of privately owned or non-profit managed caves, i.e., Punkin Cave, which the TCMA owns and manages and has a large population of bats? Will this effectively make it off limits and what is the TCMA's position? Being a TCMA member, I think it should follow whatever the NSS and TPWD recommends. I'd also be curious to see how the BCI responds to this and the caves that they own/manage. Not trying to stir things up, just trying to see what we can do to limit the scourge of WNS. Mark A.
________________________________ From: Jim Kennedy [mailto:jkenn...@batcon.org] Sent: Fri 6/11/2010 9:31 AM To: Alman, Mark @ EOS; htjo...@juno.com; texascavers@texascavers.com Subject: RE: TPWD WNS policy Mark, Caves that have bats are not necessarily "bat caves." And caves lacking bats are not necessarily NOT "bat caves." I can explain the differences later if anyone is interested, but it will probably be a long and boring explanation. But in this case, based on our meeting with TPWD a couple of weeks ago, we are talking specifically about entry into Gorman Cave, Devils Sinkhole, Stuart Bat Cave, Fawcetts Cave, and one or two others. Caves with a random tri-colored bat or two are (so far) not on this list. -- Jim -----Original Message----- From: mark.al...@l-3com.com [mailto:mark.al...@l-3com.com] Sent: Friday, June 11, 2010 7:14 AM To: htjo...@juno.com; texascavers@texascavers.com Subject: RE: [Texascavers] Texas Parks & Wildlife -- policy re WNS Can anyone clear up this line below? Does this mean closing all caves occupied by bats, i.e., Gorman Cave and others? <snip> But we intend to highly restrict entry into bat caves at TPWD sites.
