Heralding The Eastern Hellbender - Severing Stereotypes Offers A Step Toward Savoring The Salamander’s Significance - Part II

By John Zaktansky, Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper

This is Part II of a two-part series on a recent Eastern Hellbender release in the Susquehanna River posted by the Middle Susquehanna RiverKeeper.

Surrounded by posters and other informational resources on a large wall of a rural New York laboratory, a homemade 3-inch-square framed cross-stitch suggests that hellbenders are simply “less furry kittens.”

It is a simple metaphor suggesting a not-so-simple truth.

Perhaps if hellbenders were furry and purred for attention, then maybe their dire situation as a species would garner more headlines, efforts for advocacy and the necessary changes to restore their habitat and save our state’s largest amphibian from impending doom.

“In 15 years of studying the hellbender, we had one major population within the greater watershed disappear virtually before our eyes with really no understanding of why that happened,” said Dr. Peter Petokas, a research associate with the Clean Water Institute at Lycoming College, during an April interview on the Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper Podcast. “And then another population was wiped out by a sodium hydroxide spill back in 2006 when a rail car overturned next to a tributary.”

Petokas also estimated that 95 percent of the species’ habitat in the Susquehanna watershed no longer exists. Hellbenders require clean, cool water with large rock structures that aren’t impacted by excessive sedimentation/erosion issues. They also respirate directly through their skin, so they are highly susceptible to contaminants that enter the water.

That vulnerability provides an important litmus test for water quality.

Click Here to read the entire article.  Click Here to watch a video of the Eastern Hellbender reintroduction project.

To help support Dr. Petokas’ reintroduction of Eastern Hellbenders-- Pennsylvania’s official state amphibian-- to the Susquehanna River basin, contact him directly via email at petokas@lycoming.edu.  You can also learn more via Lycoming College's Hellbender Conservation Campaign page.

For more information on programs, initiatives, upcoming events and how you can get involved, visit the Middle Susquehanna RiverKeeper website.  Follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

(Photo: Juvenile Eastern Hellbender.)

(Reprinted from the Middle Susquehanna RiverKeeper Blog.)

Related Articles:

-- Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper: Groundbreaking Pilot Project Helps Restore Eastern Hellbenders To Susquehanna River Watershed - Part I

-- Middle & Lower Susquehanna RiverKeepers, File Notice Of Lawsuit Over Fish & Wildlife Service Decision To Deny Endangered Species Protection For Eastern Hellbenders

-- CBF Student Leaders Recognize Sen. Yaw For Eastern Hellbender Designation; But We’re Far, Far, Far From Done, We Need $324 Million This Year

-- Allegheny College: Research Team Helps Statewide Effort In Stream Monitoring And Trout Assessment

[Posted: September 8, 2021]  PA Environment Digest