Tourist attraction in Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

Three hiking trails and an unpaved drive provide access to the desert scenery and ecosystem. The developed portion around the cave entrance has been  designated as The Caverns Historic District. Adetached part of the park Rattlesnake Springs Picnic Area is a natural oasis with landscaping picnic tables and wildlife habitats. As a wooded riparian area in the desert it is home to remarkable variety of birds over 300 species have been recorded. About 500 species have been recored in the whole state of New Mexico. Rattlesnake Springs is designated a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places The National Audubon Society has designated Rattlesnake Springs an Important Bird Area (IBA). The natural entrance to the caverns is also an IBA because of its colony of cave swallows possibly the world's largest. Antibiotic resistant bacteria have been discovered in the isolated and little visited Lechuguilla Cave within the park. Mexican free tailed bats emerging from the natural entrance and flying to the nearest water. Seventeen species of bats live in the park including a large number of Mexican free tailed bats.


It has been estimated that the population of Mexican free tailed bats once numbered in the millions but has declined drastically in modern times. The cause of this decline is unknown but the pesticide DDT is often listed as a primary cause. A study published in 2009 by a team from Boston University questions whether millions of bats ever existed in the caverns. Many techniques have been used to estimate the bat population in the cave. The most recent and most successful of these attempts involved the used of thermal imaging camera to track and count the bats.

A count from 2005 estimated a peak of 793,000 The Mexican free tailed bats are present from April or May to late October or early November. They emerge in a dense group corkscrewing upwards and counterclockwise usually starting around sunset and lasting about three hours. ( Jim White decided to investigate the caverns when he saw the bats from a distance and at first thought they were a volcano or whirlwind.) Every early evening from Memorial Day weekend to mid October (with possible exceptions for bad weather) a ranger gives a talk on the bats while visitors sitting in the amphitheater wait to watch the bats emerge.