Practical care for caves in Slovakia - Closing the caves

Slovakia has at present more than 5,400 known caves out of which 185 most important has been closed. The Slovak Caves Administration closed 83 caves since 2002. Fifteen cave closures were reconstructed. Four abysses were fenced to prevent from pollution, falling of wild animals or people. Cleaning the dangerous waste from caves and abysses is very important task in keeping natural and sustainable state of karst environment. Seven speleological localities were cleaned in this period.

Closing the caves in 2005

15 caves were closed, 4 closures repaired and 9 karst areas cleaned in 2005. Closures were installed in newly discovered caves Džimova spása in Považský Inovec, Demänovská Medvedia Cave and Havranická Cave in Malé Karpaty. During the archaeological research of the Deravá skala near Plavecký Mikuláš a 24 metres long archaeological passage was discovered with exceptional archaeological findings from the Paleolith. The passage was conserved and closed after finishing the research. In such cases the original environment of cave is conserved and preserved in minimally changed way for the next generations. The second reason for closing the caves are the cases of destroying the caves by vandals, or by illegal commercial activities connected with destroying of precious decoration and its sale at auctions. This illegal activity is also related with archaeological and palaeolontological finding and collecting of protected animal species living in cave environment. It was the reason of installing closures and gates in caves Stará poľana in the Jánska Valley, Cave v Okolík in the Western Tatras, Drienka Cave in the Ponický karst, Viežka in the Slatinský karst on the southwest of the Strážovské Hills and in the Jubilejná Cave in Borinský karst in Malé Karpaty, which some people “by mistake” took for a wast dump. Gates were installed on request of the State Nature Conservation to protect bats in the Pružinská dúpna Cave in the Strážovské Hills. A new closure was installed in the Haviareň Cave in Malé Karpaty in the lower entrance and in the upper one, which opens to surface by 30 m long chimney, a grille was installed because of disturbing the bats by rappelling mountaineers. A cleaned Abyss v pastierni was closed in the Suché doly on the Muránska Plateau and the closure was reconstructed on the Michňová Abyss because of safety. Old closure of the Španopoľská Cave in the Drienčansky karst was removed and replaced with a new and safer one. We changed the broken gates at the Drienovská Cave on the Jasovská Plateau, where the old one was changed for a new one with safer placed lock. Repair of closure was in the Havran Abyss in Považský Inovec, which was damaged in 2004. We didn’t manage to solve the problem of the Trstínskej water Abyss in 2005, where during liquidation of a quarry and following recultivation the access to cave would be impossible. The problem was solved at the beginning of 2006 after long negotiations.

Pavol Staník and Igor Balciar