Ayalon Cave with its unique creatures was saved

The Committee for National Infrastructures in the Planning Administration decided not to include the Ayalon Cave where unique blind creatures live as part of the flood mitigation plan in the Ayalon Basin

In recent months we have been following with concern the plans that will cause the destruction of the Ayalon Cave - a unique cave where unique types of animals previously unknown to science were discovered - Most of them are marine creatures that have become blind Over the generations after the lake where they lived became part of a closed cave.

The cave was discovered about a decade ago by researchers from the Hebrew University. To their astonishment, on April 16.4.2021, 33, a national infrastructure plan, Tel/XNUMX/A, was published that threatens the exceptional and unique ecological environment of its kind in the world. The plan is intended to reduce the flow of floods in the Ayalon lanes for the construction of a railway along the canal route. The intention is to flow the floods of Nahal Ayalon into several reservoirs upstream, among them the Nesher Ramla Quarry, in whose area is the Ayalon Cave.

In this framework we published the Prof. Amos Fromkin's article from the Institute of Earth Sciences at the Hebrew University who warned against the destruction of the cave, when the benefit that would arise from this would be negligible.

Following the decision that was made in recent days, Prof. Fromkin writes: "We congratulate the hotel headed by the chairman of the planning staff, Shlomi Heisler, regarding the 33 A Subtalan plan for taking the required decision to prevent damage to the Ayalon Cave and its special fauna. We hope that environmental considerations will continue to guide the governmental and public system in Israel and will lead to a better quality world that we pass on to future generations. We thank all the participants in the struggle and the general public who supported it."

Prof. Ariel Chipman, head of the Department of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University, who acted against the plan, said today that "it is very gratifying to hear that the unique and vulnerable fauna of the Ayalon Cave has been saved from extinction. Ayalon's animals are a rare example on a global level of a complete ecosystem cut off from the outside world. Stopping the plan to drain runoff water into the cave prevented the exposure of the life in the cave to the outside world, something that would have disrupted the unique ecosystem and elevated it. It is very important that the planning bodies were able to understand the danger of this type of interference to sensitive systems."

Dr. Efrat Gabish-Regev from the National Nature Collections at the Hebrew University, who took part in the struggle: "This important decision is an important step in promoting the preservation of the unique Ayalon Cave ecosystem on a global scale. Ayalon Cave is a window to the 'opal' biome, which includes aquatic and terrestrial habitats that exist for millions of years underground. The treasures of the national nature collections at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem include details collected from the Ayalon Cave and used for taxonomic research in the description of the species unique only to this cave. We are happy that the details deposited in the collection will not remain as souvenirs of extinct species, but will be a reminder of a world hidden from view but of great scientific importance."

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• Prof. Amos Frumkin's article: The next disaster in Israel is just around the corner, who cares?
• Ayalon Cave, where very rare species of beavers live, is on the brink of an ecological disaster
• A new study found a close relationship between rare cave crabs in Israel and Italy