Proactive Cave Conservation in Tennessee

Tennessee is extremely rich in cave resources.  If you live in the eastern two-thirds of the State, chances are you are quite familiar with cave entrances, sinkholes, disappearing or “losing” streams, voids, and springs.  These landscape features, collectively known as “karst,” are present because of Tennessee’s interesting geology and abundant limestone.  Mild organic acids, formed by the mixture of water with air and soil-borne carbon dioxide, readily dissolve limestone creating cracks and fissures.  This process, working over the span of hundreds of thousands of years, has resulted in the current karst topography we see today. According to the Tennessee Cave Survey, there are over 8,000 known caves in the State! 

                           Photo by David Pelren, USFWS

Cave systems are sensitive, unique environments that provide habitat for hundreds of cave-dependent animals, especially insects and other invertebrates.  Cave creatures, adapted to a limited food supply and low light conditions, often have ranges that consist of only one or two caves.  Unfortunately, cave ecosystems and the organisms that reside in them are currently under threat from a wide variety of human-generated disturbances such as quarries, commercial and residential development, groundwater contamination, and vandalism.  In Tennessee, two cave-dependent species are listed as federally endangered, six are formal candidates for federal listing, and 24 are federal “species of concern.” 

TN cave crayfish (Orconectes incomptus), Photo by Jen Buhay, BYU

In order to address the plight of these unique organisms, the Fish and Wildlife Service, in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy of Tennessee, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, is drafting a “State Conservation Agreement for Cave Dependent Species.”  The goal of this proactive agreement is to recover imperiled cave organisms before they require protection from the federal Endangered Species Act.  Early intervention, before a species becomes critically imperiled, preserves management options, is less expensive, and is less controversial.   Implementation will be achieved through voluntary, non-regulatory management agreements with private cave owners, utilizing conservation measures such as education, signage, conservation easements, and in extreme cases, cave gating.  Although the agreement is still in draft form, our interagency partnership has already resulted in three conservation agreements protecting the entire known range of five cave invertebrates, two of which are federal candidate species.  For more information about this program, or to find out how to conserve cave resources on your property, please contact Rob Tawes at (931) 528-6481, ext. 213, or by email at robert_tawes@fws.gov.