How many cave divers in the world

[OFG-1]

Damn, I was hoping for some kind of joke, you know, like:

How many cave divers can you fit in a phonebooth?
How many cave divers does it take to change a HID lightbulb?
How much wood could a cave diver chuck if a cave diver could chuck wood?
A priest, a rabbi,and a cave diver walk into a bar....................
Knock konck? Who'sthere?, CaveDiver? CaveDiverWho?................................

something along those lines

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I would say a good way to get active divers in the USA would simple to check the Cave Excursions (both) and Amigos customer / transaction database for the last year. That would give you the best idea, maybe add 10% for other fill area.

And Dive Outpost.

Mike

Yes, because there are no caves in the panhandle, or anywhere else in the US.

[MORGAN]

Yes, because there are no caves in the panhandle, or anywhere else in the US.

I think the idea was that a good percentage of the active cave divers would be likely to be in the Luraville/High Springs area at least once in their cave diving careers.

If you counted all of the different people who got fills at these places over a two or three year period, you'd be on the way to having an idea of how many active cave divers there are.

Then you'd be left with figuring out how many are active elsewhere but don't come to that area. (or didn't during the period studied)

NSS/CDS and NACD both have around 1,000 members, some actively caving and some not.

It's apt to be a wild-assed guesstimation no matter how you do it.

Maybe we need a CDF poll on where people dive?

Mike

[fixxervi6]

I think the idea was that a good percentage of the active cave divers would be likely to be in the Luraville/High Springs area at least once in their cave diving careers.

If you counted all of the different people who got fills at these places over a two or three year period, you'd be on the way to having an idea of how many active cave divers there are.

Then you'd be left with figuring out how many are active elsewhere but don't come to that area. (or didn't during the period studied)

NSS/CDS and NACD both have around 1,000 members, some actively caving and some not.

It's apt to be a wild-assed guesstimation no matter how you do it.

Maybe we need a CDF poll on where people dive?

Mike

a TON of people don't come online at all, I know several active cavers in the DFW area that are not online active.

[WJH]

I think the idea was that a good percentage of the active cave divers would be likely to be in the Luraville/High Springs area at least once in their cave diving careers. . . Mike

That is a better surmisal than what was actually proposed, which was to take a 1-YEAR survey of the North-Central Florida database record of just TWO dive operations.

WJH

[SuPrBuGmAn]

I know of several divers who simply don't leave the Mill Pond, much less the panhandle.

[phillip1]

So more or less how many are cave certified? even if unactive like 3000-4000? all agencies combined worldwide. Guesstimates...

[MORGAN]

a TON of people don't come online at all, I know several active cavers in the DFW area that are not online active.

I was thinking that a CDF poll on where people cave dive might give an idea of what percentage of cave divers come to North Florida "cave country" vs those who don't.

This could be used to extrapolate the number of "cave country" divers out to the total number of cave divers.

Of course this presupposes that the CDF members are a representative sample of cave divers...I'd be reluctant to assume anything about this group! But you have to work with the data you have available, always keeping in mind its limitations.

Mike

[JDostal]

Very true. We've got a pretty active group up here in Wisconsin!

[cavediver256]

a TON of people don't come online at all,

WHAT ???? And they call themselves cave divers ?!?!?!?!