MARSHALL COUNTY-Something scary lurks within Tennessee Valley Authority caves.
And it’s not the bats.
The scariest thing in TVA’s caves – and many others nationwide – is the litter and graffiti a few humans leave behind.
At Cave Mountain Small Wild Area in northern Alabama – home to a spectacular cave with rare bats and a Civil War saltpeter mine – TVA scientists have teamed with the Cave Gators company to install custom metal gates at the entrance as added protection for the bats and cultural resources within.
“There are hundreds of caves on TVA properties,” Liz Hamrick, TVA biologist, said. “(We) are targeting ones with the most significant bat populations and the ones that have the most disturbance.”
And if you ask Cave Gators founder Jim Kennedy, these important sites need extra care.
“Caves are basically unloved,” Kennedy said. “Most people think of them as just a hole in the ground with no particular importance. But they’re not.”
Every cave – and every cave project – is an opportunity to help protect natural resources.
“It’s a win-win for the bats for sure,” TVA Natural Resource conservation senior specialist Heather Hart said.
“The problem with graffiti is that graffiti begets graffiti,” Jim Kennedy, founder of Cave Gators, said. “If somebody sees it there, they’re going to be more likely to come in and put their own name on.”
To the Bat Cave
Biologists make a big deal about bats.
But why?
Bats live most of their lives hidden from humans, awake and active at night and tucked away in tree bark or in chilly caves during the day – so people might not realize their ecological and economic benefits.
Besides being unique as the only true flying mammals, bats eat an impressive number of insects, saving farmers billions of dollars in insecticide costs each year.
And their guano – poop – brings nutrients inside caves, feeding creatures and bacteria that keep thousands of miles of cave networks running beneath the Valley region healthy.
Some species, such as the endangered gray bat in the Southeast, use caves year-round.
Other species of bat, including the endangered Indiana bat and the little brown, Southeastern, hoary, tricolored and more, raise their young in summer roosts in trees and return to caves to hibernate each winter.
As bat species have perished from the often-fatal fungus that causes white-nose syndrome, protecting remaining bat habitat is key.
“By putting up these access barriers … you don’t have to worry so much about people transporting in soil … that could potentially have bacteria or fungus,” Hart said.
And, as Hamrick explained, cave-explorers can easily wake up hibernating bats, forcing the animals to burn up precious fat reserves. Then they more easily succumb to white-nose syndrome.
Kennedy agreed.
“It was important to protect those sites before white-nose syndrome hit,” he said. “Now it’s even more important to protect those hibernacula. Bats don’t need the extra stress with people coming in and out.”
TVA biologist Liz Hamrick hands Kennedy a bag of litter she and others collected from inside the cave.
Careful Cave Calibrations
Learning the art of gating caves has become a mission for Jim “Crash” Kennedy.
Since 1995, he’s gated some 120 caves, including many with Bat Conservation International.
“I don’t know why people keep coming to me,” he said, standing on the sloped entrance to Cave Mountain Cave as welder Miguel Neller worked to seal beams together.
It’s because Kennedy has built a reputation. He’s one of a few conservationists in the country who take on projects at remote caves such as those on TVA lands.
His webpage reads, “No job too tough, no site too remote.”
“There are a lot of lot of people who say, ‘Oh, no, I’m not going to take that (job). It’s going to lose money,’” Kennedy said. “And I’m like, ‘Hold my beer.’”
Kennedy ran his hand along triangular stiffeners designed to make cutting or bending these cave gates nearly impossible.
“We’re constantly thinking about how to make these bulletproof,” Kennedy said. “You know, being a caver myself, I always look at this like, ‘How would I get in? How would I try to do it?’ Each cave has its own challenges – the shape, the rock, the approach. The (gates are) all build-to-fit.”
Hamrick, Alabama Cave Survey’s Scott Shaw and TVA terrestrial zoologist Emily Doub transport a steel beam down the trail. It takes many trips to haul the heavy materials to the cave.
‘It’s a Balance’
The custom-built cave gate’s massive steel beams snug close to the edges of the jagged cave entrance.
As the bars go up, Kennedy radios the next measurements to trailhead crew members, who cut each beam precisely.
The Cave Gator crew and TVA zoologists then schlep the beams – 120 pounds of steel – half a mile down the rocky trail, past scuttling armadillos and trees flagged to warn where yellowjackets and a rattlesnake live.
Once snugly welded together, the cave gate is impenetrable to people, except for a locked hatch for research and rescue.
And most importantly, it’s ecologically friendly to bats.
“It doesn’t affect the airflow,” Kennedy said. “It doesn’t affect the microclimate inside the cave. All these gates, they’re benefiting bats, but they’re benefiting all the other creatures that are using the cave as well – the salamanders, the frogs, the spiders and the crickets, everything.”
“Everything” includes cultural artifacts, too.
Scott Shaw, board member of the Alabama Cave Survey, documented Cave Mountain Cave as an archaeological site in the 1990s.
During the Civil War, Shaw said, miners hauled cartloads of saltpeter – a mineral in sediment and bat guano – from this cave to make gunpowder. They left intricate signatures and tally marks etched on the stone walls.
Spray paint now covers most of them.
“It’s a balance,” Shaw said, with a sigh. “Locals don’t like to see (gating). A lot of people have been coming to this cave probably for generations. TVA is tasked with being stewards of the resources, and this is the way to protect this particular resource.”
TVA Natural Resource conservation senior specialist Heather Hart displays the new TVA cave sign.
Triage for Caves
As TVA terrestrial biologists Maria Aguirre and Emily Doub took turns sledgehammering metal rods into the cave’s rock wall, Hart hiked in with a new TVA Cave sign to mount at the entrance.
Hart makes gates happen, from behind-the-scenes Natural Resources funding to pre-project planning with partners to on-the-ground logistics with TVA’s Biological Compliance scientists.
“I do a lot of habitat enhancement projects for threatened and endangered species,” Hart said. “This will be the fourth cave gate that we’ve installed since I started in Natural Resources.”
Gates here and at Blythe Ferry, Collier Cave and Key Cave are going up just in time.
“I love caves. I love everything about them,” Kennedy said. “They’re very fragile ecosystems, very delicate, and they are getting abused.”
As he spoke, TVA’s Liz Hamrick and Anne Hatfield, a terrestrial biologist, squeezed out from the cave through a soon-to-be-sealed gap in the bars.
They lugged a huge trash bag full of debris. It bulged with bottles, sparklers, food wrappers and other items cleared from deep in the cave.
“Nobody likes gates,” Kennedy said. “We do it in extreme situations. It’s triage. We’re trying to protect these things as best we can at the most important sites.”
Media Release/TVA RiverKeepers
