Video Presentation: Monitoring Cave Organisms, Cumberland Piedmont Inventory and Monitoring Network

The National Park Service’s 32 inventory and monitoring networks are charged with collecting, organizing, analyzing, and synthesizing long-term monitoring data of various vital signs in their respective parks. Their goal is to provide park managers with comprehensive, scientifically rigorous data on the status and trends of park resources and enable them to make informed and defensible management decisions. Toward that end, personnel at the Cumberland Piedmont Network are monitoring cave vital signs at four parks in their network. This video demonstrates the methods being used to monitor selected cave organisms (i.e., bats, cave crickets, woodrats, and cave aquatic biota) at these parks by showcasing their efforts at Mammoth Cave National Park. The video features the first known high definition footage of the federally listed endangered species the Kentucky cave shrimp (Palaemonias ganteri).