Marianna Area Fauna Counts

[MichaelAngelo]

This week on July 23 and 24 Th Rob Neto teamed with Michael Angelo Gagliardi conducted fauna counts in Jackson Blue Springs, Twin Cave, then Up and Downstream of the Hole In The Wall System. These counts are the newest addition to the NACD North American Cave Fauna Survey. Rob Neto is the team leader for the Marianna counts. Anyone interested in helping in the area should contact him. Anyone interested in starting or helping with a count in your area please pm Michael Angelo Gagliardi.

[Jack Hammer]

Great news! I truly believe over time these fauna counts will help lead to more preservation of the natural springs. A huge THANK YOU to all involved.

[Aotus]

Awesome. I'll have to look into how to become involved with, or support, these efforts.

[TracyN]

You need to have impeccable buoyancy and trim skills. No sculling, finning, or kicking up silt, or not being able to hold yourself still in the water column

[nakatomi]

You need to have impeccable buoyancy and trim skills. No sculling, finning, or kicking up silt, or not being able to hold yourself still in the water column

Another major requirement would be full cave and a high level of comfort. Basically you need to dive entirely on autopilot and only look for (and count) all the critters.

[Kelly Jessop]

You need to have impeccable buoyancy and trim skills. No sculling, finning, or kicking up silt, or not being able to hold yourself still in the water column

Having a lower wattage light helps a lot,set on widest angle as possible. One would think that bright light helps,but the species you want to illuminate in the water column are white (albino),and very bright white light tends to bleach them out. Lower wattage,dispersed light tends to illuminate the species,but keep the black background as contrast. Been doing this for 10 years,and find the ancient 10w HID set for 13 degree has proven very good.