Bat
Counts at the John Guilday Caves Nature Preserve
(Trout
Rock)
Pendleton
County, West Virginia
The National Speleological Society purchased 40 acres containing the
entrances to Trout, Hamilton, and New Trout caves in 1983.
Since that time there has been an annual bat count in each
cave to document the change in populations over time.
Several
bat counts were also done before the NSS purchased the caves.
Finding the actual records of those old counts is difficult,
but
as they are uncovered they will be posted on this page.
Some
Modern (1980
and newer) Bat Count Reports
Reports for
the bat counts done since 1999 have been published in various caving
newsletters. These reports are available below.
Reports of some of the earlier counts were also published,
but they are not available in electronic format.
During
the annual counts no attempt is made to count in the entire
cave, but the same area in each cave is counted each year.
This methodology should provide comparable statistics each
year.
You can see the recent counts by clicking the link to
each year's count. The files are all PDF files. (There was no
count in 2021).
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2022
2023
2024
2019
White-Nose
Syndrome found in Hamilton Cave (2009) (detailed report about
finding WNS in Hamilton Cave in January, 2009).
The
2010 Trout Rock Bat Count
(Report on the 2010 bat count when Hamilton Cave's population crashed
to 30 bats. Includes graphs showing historical counts in all
three caves).
Raw
Data for Recent Bat Counts
The
raw data for the "modern era" of bat counts is available below.
The data is in PDF files, but the raw data is also available
in
Excel format if desired. Contact Bob Hoke for more
information or to get the Excel files.
Trout
Cave raw data 1983-2023
Hamilton
Cave raw data 1984-2024
New Trout
Cave raw data 1982-2024
Historical
Bat Counts
This
section contains documentation about historical (pre-1980) bat counts
in the Trout Rock caves. There are many sources
that refer
to several early counts, but the intent is to provide the actual data
here rather than merely references to it All of the links
below are to PDF files.
Fowler-1941 (scanned
document and text
file)
A
copy of an article in the May, 1941, issue of the Bulletin of the
National Speleological Society by James Fowler. The article
covers many topics, but page 38 briefly describes counting 1,600-2,400
Myotis sodalis bats in one room in Trout’s [sic] Cave on February 23,
1941. [Article was supplied by the NSS Library in Huntsville,
AL].
Hall-1962 (scanned
document only)
A
very poor scanned image of Life History and Taxonomic Study of the
Indiana Bat, Myotis sodalis, by John S. Hall (Reading, Pennsylvania,
Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery Scientific Publication Number 12,
1962, 59 pages) [Scanned image was supplied by Barbara
Douglas of
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service].
Davis-1983 (scanned
document and
text
file)
A
letter from Wayne Davis (Univ. of Kentucky, Lexington, KY) to Dr.
Virginia Tipton (Radford University, Radford, VA) saying that he did
not have his notebook with banding statistics from the 1950s.
He
did provide some estimates of the number pf bats banded in Trout and
several other caves in the 1950s. [Letter was supplied by
Barbara
Douglas of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service].
Sullivan-1984 (scanned
document and text
file)
A
1984 letter from Brother Nicolas Sullivan (Manhattan College,
Riverdale, NY) to Janet McCormick (National Speleological Society)
saying that he had seen an estimated 1,000 Myotis Sodalis bats in Trout
on several winter visits from 1955-1957. These bats were
located
in what he called “the roost”, but he doesn’t specify where it
is.
He also reported seeing six clusters of 10-20 bats in the main passage
toward the entrance from the roost passage. [Letter was
supplied
by Barbara Douglas of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service].
Hall-1984 (scanned
document and
text
file)
A
1984 letter from John Hall (Albright College, Reading, PA) to Leonard
Walker (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Elkins, WV) giving detailed
statistics of counts done in Trout Cave in 1951-53 by Wayne
Davis. Davis banded 238 Myotis sodalis in Trout in 1951, 232
in
1952, and 565 in 1953. The letter also reports finding 5
Myotis
sodalis bats in Trout in 1960, 13 in 1961, and none in 1965 and later.
[Letter was in correspondence file supplied by Paul Stevens].
Miles-1984 (scanned
document and
text
file)
A
1984 letter from Robert Miles (WV Department of Natural Resources,
Charleston, WV) to Paul Stevens (NSS President) reiterating Fowler’s
1941 Trout Cave count and stating that it is encouraging that a small
colony of Myotis sodalis bats again find Trout a suitable hibernation
site. [Letter was in correspondence file supplied by Paul
Stevens].
Fowler-1984 (scanned
document and
text
file)
A
1984 letter to Rane Curl (NSS Board of Governors member) from James
Fowler (Cranbrook Institute of Science, Bloomfield Hills, MI) giving
information about the counts that Fowler did in Trout cave in
1941. [Letter was in correspondence file supplied by Paul
Stevens].
Questions
and comments about this page are welcome. Send them to Bob
Hoke at bob@rhoke.net.
This page
last updated or verified on February 14, 2024