El Cap Bat closure?

Hi all, was at the park today, (Yosemite Valley)  talk to a party who just  came off Tangerine Trip and they were up there to check out bats they said had a new pathogen's  on El Cap??? so in my opinion it's not the trash nor all the stuff left up on El Cap like portaledge's, fix ropes, fix gear, and so on and so forth is not the things like that will close climbing on El cap, but the rare and fragile bats on El Cap which they did not find one of them up on El Cap not to be monitored which they at this point have no current real bata base on! . Ok cool (where is the data base on bats in question) past and present please show me the the data base??? so my point here is, climbers not being good steward's on El Cap will not be reason to close climbing access on El Cap but the so called scientist finding that their data base on the rare and fragile bat new pathogen which  they did not find on El cap will be the reason to close climbing on El Cap like the reason to close Arch Rock climbing with the rare and fragile peregrine falcon, which we all know like the raccoon has a hard time living close with man kind!

I have no idea what in the run-on sentence you are talking about here but it sounds important

Bats carry pathogens and they were up there to study this. How does this mean El Cap is going to close?

Woah there. That sure is a lot of speculation. 

The Big Wall Bats program is in no way related to the new permit implementation.

And they were up there working on compiling more of the "data base" you desire.

FWIW, poor stewardship has certainly been the driving impetus for regulation changes.

abandon moderation wrote:

Just wait until we have the El Cap variant of Coronavirus

Big Wall Flu

Hi Mike,

This is Shannon I run the Big Wall Bats Program for the park and met you at the manure pile. As we mentioned to you yesterday, we are in no way tied to closures and are not looking to close routes in the park––our climbing surveys are only to document the species distribution in the park. Bats are a highly misunderstood order of mammal and stoking climber's fear with erroneous and speculative remarks is not only harmful to educating the public about how important bats are to us (for example they save the US about $23 billion in pesticides every year by being insectivores), but it is also harmful to our program as a big component of our observations are from caring climbers letting us know they've seen bats along climbing routes. I would very much appreciate not spreading this kind of false information.

If anyone has any questions about our Big Wall Bats program (or if you've seen any bats along climbing routes) please don't hesitate to reach out me. I'm always happy to talk about bats! 

All my best,

Shannon

Thanks for the useful info, Shannon! Can I set up a soapbox for you to dispel some common bat myths? Maybe doing so on this thread?

Shannon Joslinwrote:

Hi Mike,

This is Shannon I run the Big Wall Bats Program for the park and met you at the manure pile. As we mentioned to you yesterday, we are in no way tied to closures and are not looking to close routes in the park––our climbing surveys are only to document the species distribution in the park. Bats are a highly misunderstood order of mammal and stoking climber's fear with erroneous and speculative remarks is not only harmful to educating the public about how important bats are to us (for example they save the US about $23 billion in pesticides every year by being insectivores), but it is also harmful to our program as a big component of our observations are from caring climbers letting us know they've seen bats along climbing routes. I would very much appreciate not spreading this kind of false information.

If anyone has any questions about our Big Wall Bats program (or if you've seen any bats along climbing routes) please don't hesitate to reach out me. I'm always happy to talk about bats! 

All my best,

Shannon

Mike's fears may be overwrought but "just research" has led to closures before.

Wiliamson is still closed because of a frog, what 15 years later?

Extreme, extensive cave closures were implemented when white nose syndrome was first recognized and I believe many persist to the present day.

I'm sure Shannon is a great guy, just interested in the science, but I'll bet he's not the decision maker.

Do whatever you think best wrt reporting bat sightings, but it's totally naive to think there's no risk those reports won't be used to ban climbing at some future date.

Isaiah aka Zay Foulks wrote:

Wild places don't owe you shit. If a bunch of experts - who have dedicated their lives into their education and to monitoring and protecting local species and environments - say "we shouldn't do [x]" then don't do it.

It's a lot more nuanced than that.

Take raptor closures- they are often far more extensive and long lasting than the science justifies.

Even biologists will admit that. 

But in some areas, the forest service lacks the manpower and possibly the motivation, to verify where the birds have actually nested and open up the other closed crags.

Cave closures for WNS were extreme and were based on the 'precautionary principle' eg if there's even an imaginable chance of harm, no matter how small, then close things down.

This could definitely happen to climbing.

I like bats. I like frogs. 

There's no reason climbers and wild creatures can't usually coexist.

I personally would keep my mouth shut if I saw either near a climbing area.

You do you.

Nature doesn’t care about you but it also doesn’t care about bats

Areas get closed in part because climbers can sometimes come off as poor stewards. It’s not official the reason. But it’s a factor.

Don’t end up like the hang gliders did in Yos  

Mark E Dixonwrote:

Take raptor closures- they are often far more extensive and long lasting than the science justifies.

Even biologists will admit that. 

Source?

Fat Dadwrote:

Source?

Private conversation.

But that's a good point, I should probably independently confirm my friend's comments before repeating them.

Seemed believable to me though. 

From personal observation, I know of one crag in Boulder Canyon that gets closed every spring even though the old nest on it hasn't been used by the birds for at least 20+ years. Which seems pretty excessive.

Anyway, I'll get throttled after 3 posts, so don't see any point continuing in this thread.

I tend to get heated up about some topic and forget that I can't really sustain a conversation.

Not worth the annoyance. I'll stick to the For Sale forum and occasional posts to request/share travel information.

#fuckOnX

Mark E Dixonwrote:

Private conversation.

But that's a good point, I should probably independently confirm my friend's comments before repeating them.

Seemed believable to me though. 

From personal observation, I know of one crag in Boulder Canyon that gets closed every spring even though the old nest on it hasn't been used by the birds for at least 20+ years. Which seems pretty excessive.

Anyway, I'll get throttled after 3 posts, so don't see any point continuing in this thread.

I tend to get heated up about some topic and forget that I can't really sustain a conversation.

Not worth the annoyance. I'll stick to the For Sale forum and occasional posts to request/share travel information.

#fuckOnX

I’ve had the same conversation with people who observe nesting falcons for the Forrest service  as well. They‘ve said the same thing, that there just aren’t resources to continually observe nests and that cliffs are sometimes  closed longer than necessary because it is not yet confirmed that no falcons are nesting/hatching.

Mark E Dixonwrote:

Private conversation.

But that's a good point, I should probably independently confirm my friend's comments before repeating them.

Seemed believable to me though. 

From personal observation, I know of one crag in Boulder Canyon that gets closed every spring even though the old nest on it hasn't been used by the birds for at least 20+ years. Which seems pretty excessive.

Anyway, I'll get throttled after 3 posts, so don't see any point continuing in this thread.

I tend to get heated up about some topic and forget that I can't really sustain a conversation.

Not worth the annoyance. I'll stick to the For Sale forum and occasional posts to request/share travel information.

#fuckOnX

I appreciate the response.  Thank you.

As a biologist it kinda grinds my gears to hear a bunch of people who are not scientists claim that the science doesn't make sense.

 I'm both a hook and line fisherman and a spear fisherman and I work at a research facility that studies fisheries sustainability. And at all these local meetings about closures of any kind that are open to the public (marine life protection act) closures, there will always be a bunch of idiot spear fisherman screaming that the biologists, who have decades worth of empirical data and have dedicated massive amounts of hours studying all this stuff for years and years, sharing information between universities, commercial fishing numbers, state funded research facilities, private institutions, etc., don't know what we are talking about. 

It's the same in climbing with Raptors, frogs, whatever. It's fucking maddening. I assume they're the same people who don't trust medical science until they get cancer or diabetes and then go running to get help from a doctor. Then claim a miracle saved them. 

Patrick Lwrote:

As a biologist it kinda grinds my gears to hear a bunch of people who are not scientists claim that the science doesn't make sense.

 I'm both a hook and line fisherman and a spear fisherman and I work at a research facility that studies fisheries sustainability. And at all these local meetings about closures of any kind that are open to the public (marine life protection act) closures, there will always be a bunch of idiot spear fisherman screaming that the biologists, who have decades worth of empirical data and have dedicated massive amounts of hours studying all this stuff for years and years, sharing information between universities, commercial fishing numbers, state funded research facilities, private institutions, etc., don't know what we are talking about. 

It's the same in climbing with Raptors, frogs, whatever. It's fucking maddening. I assume they're the same people who don't trust medical science until they get cancer or diabetes and then go running to get help from a doctor. Then claim a miracle saved them. 

Data never tells the full story and as a scientist I'm sure you know that methods are never perfect, nor people.

User groups have their agenda bias, as do scientists so it's important to hear both sides of the debate. Alot of the time it comes down to what people care about more, frogs or climbing. I ask, "What have the frogs done for me lately?".

Tradiban, you're exactly the kind of guy who would be at one of those meetings yelling about something that you don't know anything about. 

Your comment is so stupid by the way. What agenda bias do you think I have? I own 2 companies, I only work with the research facility because they reached out to me for the job and I like doing the work and being involved in something important and I like spending time at sea and in and around the ocean. It doesn't pay my bills, I get paid but it is not even close to my main source of income. If you don't think that monitoring the amount of food we take from the ocean is important, or that closing an area for conservation of a species is important, or can't understand why those things would be important, that wouldn't surprise me. You just don't seem to be the kind of guy who could understand or even fathom big picture ideas like that. 

You're a habitual pot-stirring child, the kind that argues just for the sake of arguing, who gets loud and red in the face when they start to lose a debate. 

Isaiah aka Zay Foulks wrote:

Data tells *a* story and often ellucidates issues that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Were it not for science, well, lets just say we wouldnt know much about anything, and civilization as we know it wouldnt be possible (not that that's necessarily a bad thing; we fucked up as a species the second we broke from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies).

Back to the frogs. The frogs are part of an ecosystem. They eat shit, and shit eats them. Indeed, the exterpation of a single species might not always lead to the collapse of an ecosystem (think Keystone predators), but what we have here is a mentality: "Who cares about [x]?" 

Small decisions, when added up to the fact that there are basically 8 billion people on this planet, start to have a significant effect.

"What have the frogs done for me lately?" Probably not much, but then again, what has climbing done for you? Has it brought you wealth? Reproductive success? Food? 

I hate saying "nature," but every species in the natural world is part of a vastly interconnected and surprisingly fragile system that ultimately makes our lives possible.

I'm sure you've heard about this whole Mass Extinction think going on? Yeah, Earth has experienced a few, but those took place over tens of millions of years (stop and think about that for a second). This latest mass extinction is taking place on a level of DECADES and is entirely anthropogenic.

What have the frogs done for me lately? What have the whales done for me lately? What have the raptors done for me lately? What have the wasps done for me lately? Ants? Spiders? Pelicans? Primates? Otters? Emus? Elephants?

In the year 1 AD, the human population was 300 million people. In 1960, we hit 3 billion. Currently, we are talking about 8 billon people... thats exponential growth.

The estimated carrying capacity of the human race is 14 billion. 

A little thing about carrying capacities... its not exactly like people just stop having kids. Shits gonna get real, and real fast.

What we have is a runaway train of ecological devastation and - ultimately - our own demise.

Or, you know, we can forget about science and just keep doing what we're doing.

Oh wait, that's what we're doing.

Emotion ultimately makes decisions for the human race, science can influence emotion of course, but in reality it's all about how people "feel" about an issue.

Scientists regularly fall short of understanding the above concept and as a result lose favor with the decision makers. 

Isaiah aka Zay Foulks wrote:

You're absolutely right, and therein lies the problem.

"Science" (or rather, "everything") simply IS. From biology, to meteorology, geology, astrophysics... shit just HAPPENS.

ScienTISTS are the guys and gals poking their noses into the veil and saying, "Hey, shit has happened, shit happens, and this is how shit goes down/will go down."

*A* problem is that scientists and the general public don't often jive. People do/believe what they want, and when someone comes along and says, "Hey, I think Earth might not be the center of the universe, we crucify them (or something like that)."

Worse yet, sientific literature is BORING. Dear god... peer reviewed, abstract-intro-methods-results-discussion... is DRY... and within the scientific community, there is tremendous pressure to avoid any emotion, drama, or story (lest you be castigated as a pseudoscientist).

Regardless, shit just IS, and no one wants to hear about it.

So here we are, floating around - together - on this ball of rock and sea and sky, around this sun, around this galaxy... arguing and climbing and building and eating and drinking and driving and fucking and really... going nowhere.

Thus it's reasonable to fear a closure due to "research" because scientists do not control the narrative.