Megan and Dave have invited some of our European colleagues, which will give the meeting a international and professional flavor. There will also be the usual contributed paper sessions. All in all, there will be two full days of talks--August 4 and 5. If you are interested in giving a talk, please send a 250 word or less abstract to Dave Culver (Department of Biology, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20016 or email: dculver@american.edu). Abstracts are due by February 15, 1998.

You can obtain convention registration information from Avis Van Swearingen at avis@mindspring.com or phone (205) 498-2420.

The convention is in the heart of the area of high diversity of cave animals anywhere in the contiguous United States. Yes--higher than Texas and higher than Mammoth Cave. While, there is no formal biology field trip scheduled as of now, there will be ample opportunity for trips to good fauna caves. Please join us in Sewanee!

Dear friends,

I wanted to inform you that I have accepted the cave biologist position at the Missouri Department of Conservation, starting January 2, 1998. I'll be moving to Jefferson City in late December.

Although I was born and raised in Texas, I've studied caves all over North America. It will be an honor and pleasure to work for the great State of Missouri, known as The Cave State for its 6,000 caves and rich and varied cave fauna. The job description for this new position is exciting, and includes both biospeleology and cave recreation specialist duties. I'll be working a lot with cavers, landowners, and volunteers, training staff in cave conservation, protecting endangered bat caves, surveying the state's cave fauna and developing databases, doing research and publishing, and many other tasks.

Although I will soon end my volunteer position as Editor of the Texas Speleological Survey, I will remain on the TSS board and do cave database management and other things. I will also maintain my ties to the Texas Memorial Museum, which will allow me to keep the TSS and Biospeleology websites under their sponsorship.

I'll probably have a new e-mail address, but I'll continue to get e-mail at my current address for awhile. After Jan. 1 you can reach me at:

Dr. William R. Elliott
Missouri Department of Conservation
Natural History Section
P.O. Box 180
Jefferson City, MO 65102
phone 573-751-4115 ext. 647

Home address: 3709 Randall Drive #D
Jefferson City, MO 65109

I want to thank all of you and the many others who have helped me over the years. I hate to leave Texas behind, but will be back to visit from time to time, and to continue some cave ecology studies that I have been doing for a few years.

The National Speleological Society Biology Section held a successful, day-long paper session at the NSS Convention in Sullivan, Missouri (see abstracts). Thanks to Dr. David C. Ashley, Missouri Western State College for putting the meeting together. Afterwards a brief business meeting was held and two issues were put to the vote. Dr. David Culver was elected as the new Executive Secretary of the Biology Section, his primary concern being to insure that we have a good meeting at next year's convention in Sewanee, Tennessee. Anybody out there who can help Dave put together some field trips? The convention will be August 3-7, 1998. Dr. Dan Fong will continue as the section Treasurer. Your dues of $5 should be sent in now. Both Dave and Dan are at:

Department of Biology
American University
4400 Mass. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016-8007

The second vote was about whether to continue the North American Biospeleology Newsletter, which began in 1968. We voted to stop publishing the newsletter and to use this Biospeleology web site as the primary means of communication to the members! The $5 annual dues will continue to be collected so that we can assemble a membership list and do other things. If you want your name on the list, send in your dues to Dan Fong! I think one final newsletter, or membership list, will be mailed out, but I'm not sure (Dan, please give us an update).

At the end of the convention week, some of us visited Cathedral Cave, part of the Onondaga Cavern State Park, with Dave Ashley and Eugene Vale as our guides. Thanks guys for an informative trip!

Dr. Ed Theriot, Director of the Texas Memorial Museum, which sponsors this web site, approved my request to use Biospeleology as the NSS Biology Section's newsletter. This site is not the exclusive property of the NSS Biology Section, however. I consider this site to be international and open to other cave biology organizations who may want to use it. Please contact me if you are interested in contributing news, abstracts, and other material.

Note: Thanks to Raymond Tercafs in Belgium, the following links now work. We discovered that the word "erin." had to be removed from the URLs to work properly. -- Bill Elliott, Aug. 4, 1997

As part of the Tasmania Comprehensive Regional Assessment and Regional Forest Agreement process (http://www.environment.gov.au/land/forests/rfa.html), Arthur Clarke was contracted to research and prepare a report on "Management prescriptions for Tasmania's cave fauna". Very few hard copies where printed, but it is now available electronically.

Clarke, A. (1997) Management prescriptions for Tasmania's cave fauna. Report to the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement Environment and Heritage Technical Committee, ISBN 0 7246 4578 0 :

http://www.environment.gov.au/land/forests/cra/tas/caves/contents.html

You may also download the entire report as a MS Word document, including the photos, from

http://www.environment.gov.au/land/forests/cra/tas/download.html

I commend Arthur for his very comprehensive report. I add that it includes many stunning colour photographs of troglibitic critters, many very recently described. If you are interested in cave conservation, cave biota or effects of logging and surface activities on cave systems, Arthur's report is worth a read.

ERIN Regional Information Section Environmental Forests Taskforce Department of Environment, Sport and Territories GPO Box 636 CANBERRA ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA Phone: +61 6 274 1476 Fax: +61 6 274 1333 Internet: donald@erin.gov.au http://www.environment.gov.au/land/forests/forests.html

[From the Cavers' Digest: Donald Glasco <donald@erin.gov.au> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 16:19:23 +1000 (EST) To: cavers@ditell.com]

Gammarus acherondytes, once known from five caves but now only three, appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the Houston Chronicle (May 17, 1997) newspapers in an article by Peter Kendall, reprinted here. The reporter expresses the usual sentiments for and against protecting tiny cave animals, but in the end he seems to support their value as "indicator species" of water quality (although he did not use those words). I did not reproduce the three photos from the article, which showed Debbie Scott Newman of the Illinois Nature Reserves Commission in Illinois Cavern, and the fingertip of biologist Lawrence Page of the Illinois Natural History Survey examining a specimen. The reporter seems to think the U.S. Endangered Species Act was conceived for bald eagles and the Florida panther, but apparently he does not know that the Texas blind salamander, Typhlomolge rathbuni, a cave animal, was the first species on the U.S. endangered list back in 1967. (My thanks to Jerry Atkinson in Houston for sending this article.)

Speleology--Caves and the Cave Environment (1997) by George W. Moore and Nicholas Sullivan has now been printed and is available from Cave Books, 4700 Amberwood Drive, Dayton, Ohio 45424, 513-233-3561, ROGMCCLURE@aol.com. Prices are hardback $21.95, paperback $15.95, plus shipping and handling as follows: North America $2.50; elsewhere, surface mail $3.50, airmail $16.00.

The Karst Waters Institute is organizing a first annual list of the Ten Most Endangered Karst Communities. The purpose of this project is to bring public awareness to karst biodiversity in general and threatened karst communities in particular. Public awareness will be achieved in a variety of ways, including publication of the list in a wide range of environmental and public-interest journals. A press packet will also be produced. The list for 1998 will be announced in late November.

We are inviting nominations for endangered and threatened karst communities. These communities may include plants in karst terrains, bats and other species that use caves for part of the year, as well as troglobites and stygobites. A nomination needs to include the following information:

What is the precise location of the karst site?

What is the biological significance of the karst site? Please include a species list, emphasizing any unique species.

What is threatening the karst site?

Who are the local groups concerned with well-being of the karst site and the karst community?

How would publicity help the situation?

The nomination deadline is August 1, 1997. Please send nominations to:

Karst Waters Institute P.O. Box 490 Charles Town, WV 25414 or e-mail to: karst@american.edu

We would greatly appreciate any information that you may wish to contribute to this project. Please feel free to share this message with any of your colleagues who may be interested in nominating a site.

[The Troglomeister says also see the Karst Biodiversity page!]

On April 24, 1997, I published this web site. I thank Dr. Ed Theriot, Director of the Texas Memorial Museum, for supporting this project. Thanks go to my colleagues who previewed the site and made helpful suggestions over the past few weeks: James Reddell, Dean Hendrickson, Tom Poulson, Bob Mitchell, Dan Fong, Dave Culver, and George Veni. Special thanks to Chip Clark, Bob Mitchell, and Andrew Robson for publishing their fine photos on this site-- they add a lot! I am also very grateful to Terry Wilson, who scanned many of the slides used on this site. I scanned many prints with the Texas Speleological Survey's flatbed scanner, and I am grateful for its use. Compliments are starting to roll in from here and there. Keep up the compliments (and keep the ugly stuff to yourself!)

On April 22, 1997, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt announced that he would finally list the Barton Springs salamander, Eurycea sosorum, as an endangered species. The action would take place by April 25. The neotenic, partially cave-adapted, 6-cm-long salamander is found only in four spring outlets on Barton Creek in Austin, Texas. The listing could lead to restrictions on development of houses, businesses, roads, and bridges in the 354-square-mile (92,000-hectare) karst watershed in southern Travis and northern Hays counties. Listing could guard against pipeline or highway spills of gasoline, oil, and other toxic materials. Probably fewer buildings and less "impervious cover" (pavement) would be allowed than current state and local rules would allow.

Babbitt's action was forced by U.S. District Judge Lucius D. Bunton, who ruled that a conservation agreement between Babbitt and the State of Texas was inadequate to protect the salamander, and that Babbitt ignored the scientific conclusions of his own Fish & Wildlife Service that the salamander was endangered. Legal battles have been going on since January 1992, when a geologist at the University of Texas at Austin, Barbara Mahler, petitioned the Fish & Wildlife Service to list the salamander as endangered. Other scientists joined in the effort, and a large number of Austin citizens supported the proposed listing.

District 3 of the U.S. Forest Service has decided to use caves as a tool to generate monies for the Forest Service. Under a mandate from Congress each region is to propose revenue-generating projects. It has been decided that cave fees will be instituted to gain access to caves in the Guads [Guadlupe Mountains, New Mexico] and in the Coronado district in Arizona. The Forest Service expects a 40-50% increase in cave usage over a period of three years (based on their numbers) to generate increasing amounts of money. No consideration has been given to the biota in these caves and the impact of increased usage. There is little known about the fauna of Arizona's caves, but Bob Pape has started an inventory. He has several new species and other observations on the behavior of surface insects that utilize caves (beyond the entrance zone). I am trying prepare a list of published abstracts of known fauna from these areas as a tool to encourage the Forest Service to reconsider a fee demonstration project using caves.

Dave Jagnow has created the Southwest Cave Conservation Taskforce to advise the Forest Service, i.e. try to offer volunteer services instead of charging fees to cavers. If you have any information, please e-mail me and I will compile a list. If you wish to include any arguments concerning the importance of studies and biospeleological inventory of caves in this region, feel free to do so. I will include these as personal communications in letters to Region 3 officials.

Dr. Thomas L. Poulson is working on a revision of the much-admired book The Life of the Cave, originally authored by Charles E. Mohr and Thomas L. Poulson, and published by McGraw-Hill in 1966. The book is out of print, but used copies are quickly bought up at speleo book stores. We have used the glossary from this book on this web site. Tom says, "If I cannot locate the original artists then I need someone or several people who are really good to redo old and do new graphics. So you could have potential artists send me some examples for my evaluation. I do not have any way to pay them at the moment. I will provide the conceptual idea and rough drawings or material to do the drawings from. Cheers, Tom."

Contact: Thomas L. Poulson, Department of Biological Sciences (m/c 066), University of Illinois at Chicago 845 Wet Taylor Street Chicago, IL 60607-7060, USA, poulson@uic.edu

The Cave Conservancy Foundation is sponsoring an annual competition for a $15,000 graduate fellowship in karst studies. The fellowship, designed to foster graduate research, will be awarded to a master's or doctoral student who is working on a thesis or dissertation in some aspect of karst. Applicants must be full-time graduate students at a U.S. college or university. Applications must include a thesis proposal, graduate transcripts, and two letters of recommendation, one being from the thesis advisor. Applications are due June 1, 1997. Awards will be annouced by July 15. For more information, contact: Dr. David C. Culver, Department of Biology, American University, Washington, DC 20016, or via email at dculver@american.edu

Mail applications to: Cave Conservancy Foundation, Attn.: Graduate Fellowship Program, 5300 W. Marshall Street, Richmond, VA 28230

The Karst Waters Institute held a very interesting conference in Nashville from February 13-16, 1997. Many notable scientists and conservationists attended from North America, Europe, the U.K., and Australia. Many formal and poster papers were presented. Each day was very full, with papers and videos often going until 10:00 PM. A field trip to the Mammoth Cave region was taken on Saturday, with a reception at Hidden River Cave and the American Cave Conservation Association's "American Cave Museum" in Horse Cave (city), Kentucky, followed by a historical/biological tour at Mammoth Cave. The conference concluded on Sunday with more papers and a speech by ecologist Stuart Pimm, who urged cave biologists to share their knowledge of biodiversity in the various karst regions of the world and to recruit businesses to support cave and groundwater research. Thanks go to David Culver and Bill Jones for putting on this valuable conference! (See the Abstracts link for a list of authors and titles.) The Proceedings of the conference are available for US$22 (see Abstracts for more information.)

During the Nashville conference field trip to ACCA's headquarters and museum, the attendees were able to see the entrance of Hidden River Cave, once the most polluted cave in America. Formerly called Horse Cave, the large river cave had been used by the town of Horse Cave as a water supply and a source of hydroelectric power until the 1940s, when sewage began to be dumped to the underground river. Later, a chicken processing plant and a metal plating plant added to the pollution, and blind fish and crayfish disappeared from the cave stream for decades. ACCA set up its headquarters in a building overlooking the dramatic cave entrance in 1987, and soon involved the town in joining a regional sewage plant. After decades of abuse, the cave stream went through a reverse ecological succession as Tubifex worms and other signs of enrichment disappeared. Troglobitic fish crayfish are returning to the cave system from subterranean tributaries, and ACCA now leads educational tour groups into the cave.

The NSS Biology Section formed in 1965 and welcomes biologists and nonbiologists alike to join for an annual membership fee of US$5.00. Send your fee to Dr. Dan Fong, American University, Department of Biology, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Washington, D.C. 20016 (202) 885-2194 Fax: (202) 885-2182. The Biology Section usually hosts a scientific meeting at the annual NSS Convention, and sometimes sponsors a symposium. The section newsletter, the North American Biospeleology Newsletter (NABN), started in 1968, and is published about once a year. This web site is intended to supplement and support NABN, currently edited by Dr. Kathy Lavoie and Dr. Dan Fong. Material published here will be used in the newsletter, unless the contributor specifically requests that it not be used without his/her permission. Kathy's address is University of Michigan at Flint Department of Biology Flint, MI 48502-3687 (810) 762-3234 Fax: (810) 762-3006

The Biology Section will host a meeting at the 1997 NSS Convention in Sullivan, Missouri, sometime during the week of June 23-27. See the calendar for who to contact.

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