Colorado Cave Survey

Access to Groaning Cave, Colorado’s longest cave, is managed by the Colorado Cave Survey for the White river National Forest.  A short summary has been prepared of caver visitation to Groaning Cave during the years 2017 and 2018, based on the log entries in the cave register filled out by every caver group.  There were … [Read more…]

Rocky Mountain Resources has proposed a large expansion of the existing Midcontinent limestone quarry near Glenwood Springs.  Many cavers are concerned about the potential impacts both on the popular, wonderfully decorated tourist caves at Glenwood Caverns, as well as other smaller lesser known caves in the area.  There are also concerns about the impact on … [Read more…]

Two recent scientific publications on bats and White Nose syndrome may be of interest to Colorado cavers.  Both provide some evidence that caver visitation will probably not be a primary vector for spreading White Nose Syndrome in Colorado. The first is a Biology MS thesis from the University of Akron, by Charbel Cherfan, entitled “Determining the … [Read more…]

We have a new Memorandum of Understanding with the White River National Forest. See the MOU here.

Effective August 1, 2013 the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region will be implementing an adaptive management strategy for white-nose syndrome (WNS) on national forests and grasslands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Kansas. The adaptive management strategy replaces emergency cave closures that have been in place throughout the Region since 2010 when Pseudogymnoascus destructans … [Read more…]

The USGS National Wildlife Health Center recently announced that the identification of the Pd fungus on a bat in Oklahoma was in fact a false positive and the state is no longer considered WNS “suspected”. Many public land managers are reviewing this latest information, but there have been no changes to policies as a result … [Read more…]