UNDERSTANDING CAVE RESOURCES: AN INTERAGENCY APPROACH

Beginning in the spring of 2002, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and the Lava Beds National Monument entered in an interagency cooperative agreement for cave resource inventory for the lava tubes of northern California. The agreement included work to be done on the Klamath and Shasta-Trinity National Forests. The Forest Service sought the expertise of cave resource managers from Lava Beds to help document and gain a better understanding of the cave resources that they were tasked with managing.

A team of resource specialists and volunteers from Lava Beds began detailed resource inventories of a number of identified significant caves on the two forests, beginning with lava tubes, and in 2004 branching out to include solution caves with assistance from resource specialists from Carlsbad Caverns NP.

The inventories are based loosely around existing resource inventories at both Lava Beds and Carlsbad Caverns,

The Forest Service receives detailed information about the type, quality, and extent of physical, biological, and cultural resources located in the selected caves, as well as management recommendations