Jamaican Bat Guano and Cave Preservation

Caving News Jamaican Caves Organization Jamaica Caves

Support Jamaican Caving   Contact: JamaicanCaves.Org

The caves of Jamaica, like other caves around the world, face threats to their physical structure, their biodiversity, and the paleoclimatic and fossil records that they preserve. The damage being done to these ancient, underground systems has one source and that is us. The ways that humans cause damage to caves may be broadly grouped into two categories: external and internal. External factors are activities such as removal of forest cover on, and upstream of, the caves. Deforestation on the land immediately above the system affects the temperature and humidity of the cave below. Deforestation upstream of hydrologically active systems results in the filling up of the cave with silt. A good example of this latter occurence is Clifton Cave in Dolphin Head. Within a generation, it has gone from being a beautiful, biologically rich underground world, to a mud-filled crawl less than a metre high... that which remains of it. This was caused by the complete removal of the trees that once slowed, and held, the seasonal run-off of rain. Internal factors in the destruction of Jamaican caves are excessive human visitation for the purposes of tourism, and more importantly in Jamaica, mining for bat guano. It is unfortunately little known that the caves of the island are habitats for much more than bats. In caves that have rich deposits of guano, there live many fascinating invertebrates. Much of the biodiversity of the Jamaican caves is dependent on bat guano as the food resource. The wholesale removal of the bat guano results in the elimination of not only the bats that made it, through repeated disturbance of a creature that lives on the metabolic edge and is easily driven over that edge, but also results in the elimination of almost every species that lived on it. The cave is effectively sterilized and although the bats might eventually return the invertebrates that were lost are gone forever. I invite any wholesalers, retailers, or buyers of Jamaican Bat Guano to join me in a visit to Bristol Cave if you doubt this. Where there was once a colony of tens of thousands of bats, where there was once a myriad of inverterbrate species, now there is nothing thanks to guano mining. As well as supplying a habitat for living creatures, old guano deposits contain a record of the climatalogical conditions of the island that extends back over thousands of years. They also contain the fossilized remains of ancient creatures that once called these caves home. Physical damage that can be done to formations, and bone breccia [1], will be unavoidable during the mining process. There is more to be found in the caves, and the guano, than just a fertilizer that will likely be used for the production of recreational drugs; remove the guano and you remove tens of thousand of years of Jamaica's history and much of the life that still exists there. This damage will be irreversible. The current biological status of the source caves for the commercially available Jamaican Bat Guano found at hydroponic and gardening stores across North America is unknown, but prudence suggests a careful survey to ensure that the cave systems remain healthy. Caves, as well as being beautiful, are wonderful biological islands capable of creating their own endemic species, archives of our planet, and are in great need of our protection. Before purchasing any bat guano fertilizer, one must consider the true need, and the consequences, of using such a product. [1] Journal of Karst and Cave Studies, Aug 2002 Cave biota videos (non-Jamaican) (Please excuse this next part... it is a direct attempt to have this page do well in the Search Engines and thereby combat the desecration of the Bat Caves of Jamaica by merchants dealing in Jamaican Bat Guano) Removal of Jamaican Bat Guano damages Jamaican Caves; Jamaican Bat Guano should never be used for commercial purposes; Jamaican Bat Guano is sold as an organic fertilizer by unscrupulous retailers, that will be used in growing Ganja; Jamaican Bat Guano should never be bought or sold; Jamaican Bat Guano contains paleoclimatic records; Jamaican Bat Guano contains fossils; removing Jamaican Bat Guano will result in the elimination of the Jamaican bats that produced the deposits; Jamaican Bat Guano can carry histoplasmosis and can be hazardous to your health. To summarize, if you buy Jamaican Bat Guano you are helping to destroy the bat caves of Jamaica.

Introduction to Jamaican Caves and Sinkholes