Data Sensitivity Policy

The Cave Biology Data Portal publishes information about species that are, in many cases, known from a single cave. Publishing exact locations for those species would put them at risk. This page explains what we publish, what we withhold, and why.

Why locality information is sensitive

Obligate cave species are unusually vulnerable to disturbance. More than half the cave-obligate species in this portal carry a NatureServe global rank of G1 or G2 or IUCN Red List rank of CR, EN, or VU, and many are known from one or a handful of sites. A single episode of collecting, vandalism, or careless visitation can affect a substantial fraction of a species.

Most caves in the United States are on private land. Access depends on landowners’ goodwill, and publishing a cave’s location without permission can end that access for everyone, including the researchers who monitor the species living there.

Exact coordinates are never displayed

This is a blanket rule with no exceptions. Exact coordinates are held in the portal database and are used to generate maps and regional summaries, but they are never shown on a page, never included in a public download, and never present in any data the website sends to a browser.

Distribution is published generalized to county or karst region. Maps are rendered as shaded areas rather than points because a point implies a precision we deliberately do not provide.

Where a species account shows no locality detail, that is a deliberate decision rather than missing data. The underlying records exist.

Cave names are published by default

We name caves whose names are already public, for example, when they appear in the published literature or are attached to a specimen record in a searchable museum database. Withholding a name that is already in print protects nothing and makes the portal less useful to the researchers it is built for.

A cave name is withheld when any of the following applies:

• The landowner has asked that it not be published.
• The species or the locality is the subject of work not yet published.
• There is documented vandalism, collecting pressure, or another site-specific protection concern.

Each withheld name carries a recorded reason, the person who recorded it, and the date. Withholding pending publication carries a review date so an embargo does not quietly become permanent.

Access for researchers

Qualified researchers, agency staff, and conservation practitioners may request exact coordinates for a species or a region. Requests are handled directly rather than through the website, and are considered individually.

A request should include your name, affiliation, ORCID (if you have one), the species or area of interest, and how the data will be used. Write to info@cavebiology.org.

We keep a record of requests and what was shared. When data originate with a landowner, an agency, or another contributor, we may need their consent before passing them on.

Published data and Darwin Core

Where records are published to aggregators such as GBIF, generalization is declared using the standard Darwin Core terms, so downstream users can tell that data was deliberately withheld rather than never collected:

Term	Value
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters	10000 for county, 50000 for karst region
dataGeneralizations	Coordinates generalized; exact coordinates withheld as a matter of policy
informationWithheld	Exact coordinates. Available to qualified researchers on request.

Reporting a concern

If you believe information on this site puts a site or a species at risk, or if you are a landowner who would prefer a cave name not to appear, please write to info@cavebiology.org. We will respond promptly and will withhold the information while we look into it.

Last updated: This policy was last updated on 15 August 2026.