Cave Damage at Little River!!!

[Daedalus]

Lining up at 7AM and waiting an hour at the ranger station just to get turned away would put quite the damper on a cave diving vacation.

[defunct]

It is well past time for cave divers to wake up and realize what could happen. The state folks read these forums. Everybody bitches about the numbers policy at Manatee; how would you like to see that at Peacock and Little River???

Maybe it would be best for someone to report the damage to a cave conservation organization rather then posting it on a public forum. Personally, I feel that posting things like this (whether intentional or unintentional damage) on a public forum is just about as bad as simply drafting up an email to the head of the State Parks, DEP, Water Management Districts and proclaiming the damage seen to them.

It will not help us (cavedivers) when we are asking for a system to be opened up for diving.

Personally, I am kind of tired of seeing the posts in such a public place... then again, what do I know?

[Mike Edmonston]

Maybe it would be best for someone to report the damage to a cave conservation organization rather then posting it on a public forum. Personally, I feel that posting things like this (whether intentional or unintentional damage) on a public forum is just about as bad as simply drafting up an email to the head of the State Parks, DEP, Water Management Districts and proclaiming the damage seen to them.

It will not help us (cavedivers) when we are asking for a system to be opened up for diving.

Personally, I am kind of tired of seeing the posts in such a public place... then again, what do I know?

Or maybe it shows that us cavedivers are activelly concerned about the conservation in the systems, and we want to minimize the impact by educating those that don't know any better! Maybe, by bringing this up in a public forum, more individuals will keep an eye out for vandalism or outright damage.

Then again, what do I know, I still have to go read the NSS book on digging through flowstone!

[Jerry]

Maybe it would be best for someone to report the damage to a cave conservation organization ...................

What cave conservation organizations?? The only organizations I know of are for training; they teach that crashing along the ceiling is bad because of the roll-off potential and not because of the damage to the cave!

Jerry

[Gary]

Maybe it would be best for someone to report the damage to a cave conservation organization rather then posting it on a public forum.

That has been the general idea for years now. What it has gotten us is a lot of destroyed cave, many new cave training organizations, thousands of new cave divers, and no one looking out for the caves.

When the caves start getting closed the organizations will start training cave conservation and not before.

The sooner the better.

[skip]

Don't know about you, but my training (NACD) included conservation issues. Bumping the ceiling was bad bad bad, and not because of potential roll off, but because you are damaging the cave. It was pretty clear that hitting the ceiling too much, failing to improve during the days of diving, etc., was a good way not to pass! Pull and Glide was another bad thing in general; do it only when necessary, and then only in certain places, and the dives demonstrated where and when and how (like never with fingers, flat of hand and then gently).

Maybe it was just my instructors, but dang, we even had written test questions on conservation....take nothing but memories, leave nothing but bubbles, kill nothing but time.

"Swim like a fish...do you see fish touching anything?"

-skip

[DogDiver]

Many good points of disscussion on both side of the issue. As Little River is my back yard cave it is one of my favorites. But as the saying goes: You can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. After all, we are talking about rocks here. Incedental damage in the process of exploration is not the same as defacement as in the Cow case. We all try our best to be carefull. Anyway....food for thought, and we can all respect one anothers view point...Ken

[Moonfuzzy]

This could be reality due to wear and tear in the cave system. Carrying capacity is a common approach when for example a trail gets too much attrition,no different for a cave system.

The sad part is that if divers were more careful and held as their primary goal to never damage the cave the carrying capacity would be so much higher I doubt there would be a need to institute it.


BTW- Yes Mike, I am very upset by the damage you are reporting. Anyone have a clue about who could have done this?

[CaveBum]

ever been dry caving?

Our "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles, kill nothing but time" comes from the dry cavers "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time" so we all would have to ask "Have YOU ever been dry caving? If so what did the cave look like when you left?"

Bruce

[skip]

take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but bubbles, kill nothing but time, touch nothing but water.

-skip