Carroll Cave Conservancy, Inc.

Hello bio-cavers,

As most of you are aware, the Missouri Cave Life Survey has been

completed. The results of our U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service-funded grant

were presented with a variety of other scientific papers last weekend,

before the MSS meeting, in Rolla. The final report, while it will be

edited for publication during the next few months, has been submitted to

the MDC and the MCKC has received a total of $12,000 for your efforts.

Forty-five cavers were trained at our workshops last year, but several

of these never made one of our work trips (you know who you are!).

Seventy individuals helped inventory 40 caves in twenty Missouri counties

over a period of 11.5 months. Of the surveyors, 59 were cavers and

eleven were resource management professionals, usually from the cave's

landowning agency. Twenty-one of the 59 caver-surveyors did not attend

one of our formal training sessions (but typically had some biology

knowledge and experience).

Participating volunteers contributed 1083.5 hours and 12,569 miles to

the project. Todd Heintz made the greatest contribution in the way of

man-hours (and hated every minute of it). Jason Trussell logged more

miles than any other participant (many of them in 4-wheel drive). Thanks

go to all of you, however, for your contributions and concern.

A (very brief) summary of our results?

- grotto salamander numbers are down (from 92 to 60), while other

salamander species maintained their numbers

- pickerel frog numbers plummeted while green frogs tripled (we saw a

large congregation in drought-stricken Lone Hill Onyx Cave)

- gray bats doubled, particularly because we found two new colonies (in

Shannon Co.), and because River Cave's (Camden Co.) maternity colony is

completely closed (i.e. gated) to visitation now

- pipistrelles went from 374 to 2542 over the past 20 years ...more on

that below.

- big browns and Indiana bats fell sharply, perhaps due to warmer winters

in recent years. Big browns are probably still using other sites, but

the Indianas are quickly on their way toward extirpation in Missouri.

Besides drought, and an overall decrease in human impact in our 40

caves, I think a few differences between some of our population estimates

and Gardner's can be explained by inconsistent sampling techniques.

Gardner admitted that when they came across a very common species, they

did not make an effort to count EVERY individual (as we did), thus the

huge jump we saw, perhaps, in pipistrelles and salamander larvae.

Because the Gardner study focused so much on invertebrates (i.e. on the

floor), other bats may have been underrepresented in Gardner's censuses.

Northern long-eared bats, for example, were usually found hidden in

cracks and crevices in the ceiling; Gardner found only 1, whereas the

MCLS counted 63! Similarly, while more thoroughly searching through leaf

debris at the entrance than we did, Gardner found twice as many

red-backed salamanders.

We can only speculate the causes for these and other differences, of

course. To really get a handle on how our cave animals are faring over

the long-term, two data sets may not be telling us much about normal

population fluctuations, for example, or how recent water conditions may

have altered vertebrate numbers. Naturally, we could always use more

data and future study.

Next time, we'll certainly have to concentrate more on duplicating our

methodologies. During the MCLS, we were guilty of expending about TWICE

as many man-hours as did Gardner. Curiously, the total number of

vertebrates we counted was likewise twice that counted in these same

caves twenty years ago! This reinforces concerns for those species which

declined, because we were "looking harder" but found fewer individuals!

I'll be presenting these results (and some fine pictures) again at the

MCKC's Fall MVOR at the Sinks, October 18-20. If you haven't received a

registration form, or for more information about the event, check out

www.mvor.org - it's a great-looking site.

I still have some follow-up work to do, like copying our data forms for

the respective cave-owners' files, and looking over the water analyses

from the samples we took, but the project is officially concluded. I

think it was a great success and I had a terrific time caving with you

all. My sincerest thanks go to all of you for your time, patience,

expertise, and skill as concerned cavers.

Thanks,

Lawrence Ireland

P.S. A couple fringe benefits for all your hard work: I still have a

few copies of Bill's book, "A Pictorial Guide to Missouri Cave Life"

available, IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY REC'D ONE. If I still don't have

enough for everyone, I apologize. (If it's any consolation, the MDC will

be publishing the book for the public within a year or so.) I also want

to copy all our digital photos, and the results of our study, onto CDs

for everyone. Bill Elliott will probably also include the Pictorial

Guide on the CD. If you don't have a computer, or don't want a copy of

one of these CD's, please let me know so I can keep costs down.