The Missouri Department of Conservation's Cave Program. (Speleology Section).

* Elliott, W.R. Missouri Department of Conservation, Natural History Division. THE MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION'S CAVE PROGRAM. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) began a concerted effort to conserve caves and cave life in the late 1970s. The initial focus primarily was on endangered species, such as Indiana bats, Gray bats, and Ozark cavefish. Of the 5,700 caves in Missouri, MDC owns about 210. The Natural History Division spearheaded efforts to inventory and evaluate caves, and certain caves were protected for wildlife and other values. MDC provides assistance to other agencies and private landowners to evaluate and protect their cave resources. MDC provides magazine articles, television programs, public lectures, teacher workshops, and grants to research karst wildlife and hydrology. With the addition of a full-time cave biologist in 1998, our program has grown to include databases on caves and their wildlife, symposia and worshops on cave ecology and management, publications, videos, and increased support of research, management, education, proper cave signage, and cave gating. We are sponsoring cave restoration and bioinventory projects with cooperating grottoes (chapters) of the National Speleological Society. In 2001 MDC will sponsor a cave gating workshop, an interstate publication on karsts, small grants, a new video, and perhaps a traveling, educational "Cave Caravan."