INFORMATION COLLECTION AT WAITOMO CAVES
For anybody contemplating beginning a tourist cave operation it is worth giving some thought to establishing a systematic method of collecting information on the resource itself and its users. If this information is collected in a continuous and consistent manner a much better understanding of the cave can be achieved and this leads to better management. Similarly, information on visitors can allow identification of patterns and trends, visitor types, visitor expectations, needs and caves staffing requirements. This again can lead to more refined management. For visitors and managers of the cultural history of the cave, particularly its establishment, is very much a part of the experience. This again relies on the collection and recording of information.
Like several of our counterparts in Australia, the caves at Waitomo have been operating for over 100 years, but there are many gaps in our knowledge of our past, much valuable information lost and many opportunities missed. In realising this loss and the need to understand our resource better, information collected is now part of every day management.
Four overlapping categories of information collection at Waitomo Caves can be defined.
1. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING
Scientific research is perhaps the most intense form of information collection and analysis. Proper research did not begin at Waitomo Caves until the 1950s and reached a peak of activity in the late 1970s with the Waitomo Caves Scientific Research Program. Our monitoring today comes from recommendations made in research papers. This has been discussed in detail in other conference proceedings but, basically, climate, cave ecology and catchment hydrology are covered.
Climate
Both outside climate and cave climate are monitored. On the outside, rainfall and cloud cover are recorded daily and a thermohydrograph continuously charts temperature and humidity. Inside the cave the minimum and maximum atmospheric temperature are recorded every two weeks, similarly evaporation rates and rock temperature are noted. Again thermohydrographs continuously record temperature and humidity.
Cave Ecology
Every two weeks the number of glowworm lights in a sample area of the Grotto are counted. In the same area the number of glowworm pupae, adults, harvestmen, spiders (the glowworms' main predators) and glowworms killed by fungi are recorded, as are the size and number of insects caught in the lines of ten glowworms.
Hydrology
The Waikato Catchment Board operates a flow recorder 3 kilometres upstream from the Glowworm Cave. This graphs out continuously the level of the Waitomo River as it responds to rainfall conditions. In the Glowworm Cave the water level highs and lows are recorded and notes kept on floods and silt build-up.
Much of the environmental data is plotted onto yearly graphs and collated with other material into a booklet and then filed in the General Manager's office, the Cave Manager's office, THC Head Office Wellington and the Museum of Caves, Waitomo.
2. VISITOR INFORMATION
With each cave tour we record the time the tour entered the cave, the guide and the number of people on the tour. We keep daily totals of visitors who come on organised groups, tours or who bought tickets. Monthly comparisons, including average coach loadings, are made with the same month of the previous year. This is also done on a yearly basis. Again this allows patterns and trends to be identified. This information is very useful when planning for staffing or scheduling work projects, and when related to national figures it can give an indication of whether our share of the total tourist market is increasing or decreasing.
3. MONTHLY REPORTS
At the end of each accounting month a report is sent to Head Office. Visitor numbers and changes are detailed and also any other activity worthy of reporting or, just as important, recording. These reports have become a very valuable continuous journal of activity and record unusual events, notable visits, progress on research or work projects, new problems encountered and other activity that might affect the caves. This is where we record irregular activity such as cave cleaning, lampenflora removal, desilting etc. These reports are often referred to, to find out when something was last done or first noted, or how often it has occurred or needed doing in the past.
4. MATERIAL FOR THE ARCHIVES
I think just about every manager of a long established operation laments the lack of information on the past of that operation. Several of our tourist caves in Australasia have been operating for over a century and have developed a character that finds expression not only in the architecture and construction, but also in the interpretation of the resource itself. The cultural history of a cave becomes part of the cave and like the cavern's formations or glowworms, worthy of both presentation and preservation. This cultural history depends on someone collecting it. Suitable material for the archives include photographs, newspaper clippings, video and film material including tapes of television items, pamphlets, cave tickets, guide uniforms, lighting equipment etc. At Waitomo we are very lucky to have our Museum of Caves where this material is carefully archived and catalogued. The ordinary everyday business papers such as reports, memos; correspondence if systematically and selectively filed, also become, in time, valuable archives. Many of us are going through administrative changes and often files are lost or irretrievably buried at the time of changeover.
At Waitomo we have little of this material more than about fifteen years old.
With the methods of information collection now installed it is hoped that there will be fewer gaps in the present record of our caves and their management and that this material will be of some use to future managers, cave staff, cave visitors and those interested in the past.