Most of these caves, the Govt people (rangers, fish & wildlife service, whoever mans the area) basically understand there is a cave. That's about it. If they know where the entrances are, most get lost once out of site of the entrance.
And yes yes yes to all the ideas presented here, and we have been trying to work with them for years. There are TWO (maybe three) people for example, with permission to access Fern. And it tooks months to get that permit. They are working on trying to get more added to it, because that few can't clean up and police miles of complex cave system. But Fern is just one example of many.
I think in Indiana they are starting to get together to try and sue the government for denying access to public lands, destroying the bats and ecosystems, etc. but such takes a lot of time, and money. We don't have lots of money for big lobbyists and such. Nothing like what Fish and Wildlife and other large national wildlife protection agencies have. It's really sad. Basically the way I see it happened was "wtf bats dying? close the caves until we know what's going on". But in light of ALL the evidence now for what is going on, they just want to stick to the cave closure policy. It's easier (in their minds) to control people. It gives them a group to blame for the bat deaths, an action to take. Then can wash hands of it and be done. I mean, you can't do anything with bats, can't control bats. Can control people.
We are trying to get the word out. And groups like the Southeastern Cave Conservancy have reopened all their bat habbitated caves as an example, with a permit access system in place so we know who is going in when and all that. Just like before with sensitive caves. From what I can tell this has upset the government but we have to challenge them somehow becuase their policy is completely unaffective in preventing the spread since you can't control bats, who spread it, and it's doing more harm in allowing so much greater access to vandals.
I think it is partially a culture thing. It doesn't seem ever that ya'all have anywhere NEAR the issues we do with cave vandalizm, or vandalizm of nature in general. I'm not sure why it's a "cool" thing to do here, comparitivly. I mean, the US (even before WNS) had sacrificial caves. Caves that are so well known by the mass public, it's the ones all the teens go to party in, all formations long since destroyed, spraypaint all over, trash, etc. Didn't matter how many cleanups we organized, all the crap would come back faster than we could get rid of it. These were easy access right off the road all the locals know it and been going in there with a flashlight since they were kids themselves sort of caves. It's sad enough they exist. We dont want them to take the other caves.
And the government isnt' even all together. For example, if you look up recreation places on the national park an recreation areas site, you easily find Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge.
http://www.recreation.gov/recAreaDetails.do?contractCode=NRSO&recAreaId=1395&agencyCode=70906
Notice anything interesting? No note of closure, and indeed very good directions right to the friggin' cave. What. The. F**k. The government doesn't even talk with /itself/. Oh sure let's close caves. But let's provide directions to them on our national recreation website and say "have at it!".
Trust me...we're getting blue in the face trying to talk sense into people...hopefully things will turn around. We had good relatinships for years with managing access for the parks and rec and such services, but the gov't mandate to close caves changed all that.
Some areas it's not so bad. There are some states that allow cavers permits to do scientific studies and survey projects, etc.