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 Post subject: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:31 pm 
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Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:05 pm
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Location: Berkeley Heights
Good article.


http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/blog/ ... ent-light/


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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 7:08 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:28 pm
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Location: Winnemucca, NV
I hope their work will lead us toward a better understanding of WNS and how best to deal with it. The fungus attributed to White Nose Syndrome, Geomyces destructans has also been discovered on bats in Europe without killing them. It is theorized that this fungus has co-evolved with bats in Europe whereas in the United States, it is acting like an invasive species decimating bat populations.

Now if only the word "tunnel" were substituted for each time it said "shaft", it would read correctly. :)

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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 7:37 pm 
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Location: Berkeley Heights
You're right Mike. So many articles mistakenly call tunnels, horizontal shafts.

I am quite certain, if he were still alive, my cousin Harold, who was one of the first scientists to study the bats of Hibernia, would get to the bottom of things.


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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:59 am 
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I am curious to hear more about your cousin. Did he study the bats before the shafts were reclaimed? An entire bat hibernaculum which once had several entrances spanning over a mile was eventually reduced to one tiny hole in a concrete wall surrounded by a bat gate by 1994. I always wondered what effect the reclamation had on the bat population.

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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:38 am 
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I'll have to dig up my article on my cousin Harold Trapido. But he performed research at the mine in 1940, 1950 or so. He would take bats, tag them and release them in New York State. The bats would promptly come back to the mine. I recall him speaking of the mine being used as a mushroom farm at one point during his research. I know that was long ago.

He took us there for the first time when the entrance was blocked by a large boulder. Some years later, that absurd concrete wall went up.


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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 9:16 am 
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Here is the article. It notes that my cousin Harold was working in the mine in 1939.

http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-a ... icleID=665


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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:05 pm 
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Your cousin will forever be a part of Hibernia Mine's story. The Hibernia mushroom farm however, has definitely been lost to history. It is remarkable how easily bats can find their way back home while we silly humans clumsily fiddle around with our gps units. Do you know if Harold ever visited Beach Glen Mine?

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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 8:57 pm 
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I don't know if he got into Beach Glen, Mike. He died right before I got married in 1992. As a kid, he would tell me all sorts of stories of his mosquito eradication efforts around the globe. One hell of an interesting guy.


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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 6:46 pm 
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Efforts were made in the last couple of years to gain entry into Beach Glen Mine, presumably to study and prepare it as a potential bat hibernaculum. However, these efforts (done with a backhoe) were abandoned for some reason. It would be interesting to learn about any bat studies done in some of the larger mines before they had been completely sealed off.

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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:21 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:33 pm
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Location: Above the Sterling Hill Mine
Jackstraw,

By any chance did your cousin take any photographs of any of his work or of any of these historical sites? Sites like Hibernia have a ton of history behind them, but not always a lot left to show.

Miner Greg


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 Post subject: Re: Article On Hibernia
PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 7:12 am 
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An interesting question, Greg. Harold had a son but we haven't spoken with him in years. To my knowledge, he did not share his Dad's various interests.

I wonder if any of his field notes, papers etc. exist at Cornell in some dusty storage space.


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