Enjoying a Caving Trip
Let's talk about bats. Bats are very friendly. Bats are mammals. Contrary to popular belief, bats are not blind. Bats do not get tangled up in your hair. Bats seldom transmit disease to other animals or humans. All mammals can contract rabies; however, even the less than a half of 1% of bats that do contract the disease, normally bite only in self-defense and pose little threat to people who do not handle them. Leave Bats alone.
A single little brown bat can catch 600 mosquitoes in just one hour! A colony of 150 big brown bats can protect local farmers from up to 18 million or more rootworms each summer. In the wild, important agricultural plants, from bananas, breadfruit and mangoes to cashews, dates, and figs rely on bats for pollination and seed dispersal. Bat droppings in caves support whole ecosystems of unique organisms, including bacteria useful in detoxifying wastes, improving detergents, and producing gasohol and antibiotics. An anticoagulant from vampire bat saliva may soon be used to treat human heart patients.
The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny! Giant flying foxes that live in Indonesia have wingspans of nearly six feet. The common little brown bat of North America is the world's longest-lived mammal for its size, with life spans sometimes exceeding 32 years. Mexican free-tailed bats sometimes fly up to two miles high to feed or to catch tailwinds that carry them over long distances at speeds of more than 60 miles per hour. Fishing bats have echolocation so sophisticated that they can detect a minnow's fin as fine as a human hair, protruding only two millimeters above a pond's surface. African heart-nosed bats can hear the footsteps of a beetle walking on sand from a distance of more than six feet. Red bats, which live in tree foliage throughout most of North America, can withstand body temperatures as low as 23 degrees F. during winter hibernation. Tiny woolly bats of West Africa live in the large webs of colonial spiders. Vampire bats adopt orphans and have been known to risk their lives to share food with less fortunate roost-mates. Mother Mexican free-tailed bats find and nurse their own young, even in huge colonies where many millions of babies cluster at up to 500 bats per square foot! Bats are truly amazing! Bats are exceptionally vulnerable to extinction, in part because they are the slowest reproducing mammals on earth for their size. Most only produce one young a year. Nearly 40% of American bat species are threatened or endangered. Please, do not disturb bats while caving.
The following is information about caves and caving. Some of the information will tell you about required caving gear that everyone must have. No exceptions. Most of this information you will find useful to make your trip underground more enjoyable.
A word of caution...Caving can be a dangerous sport. The total and unremitting absence of light is a constant source of danger to those who explore the subterranean world. The temperature of many caves can cause hypothermia unless proper precautions are taken. The mud and the humid atmosphere create slippery conditions underground and normal aboveground climbing techniques are not sufficient to insure a reasonable margin of safety in cave exploration. Virgin or infrequent visited caves almost invariably present problems of unstable rock and treacherous hand_ and footholds. Reasonable safety in caving can only be achieved through a combination of proper attitude, good equipment, and training from those already well versed in the specialized techniques of cave exploration.
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