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Team struggles to save hellbenders
By Sara Shipley
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
TECUMSEH, Mo. - Insulated by a thick black wetsuit, Mauricio Solis slipped under the surface of an Ozark stream in search of a prehistoric creature. He turned over heavy rocks one by one, scanning the bottom for a slippery figure the color of rotting leaves.
The cold, oxygenated water of the White River's North Fork holds some of the last remaining members of an amphibian family that has roamed this planet for 150 million years. The hellbender salamander has survived dinosaurs, tectonic shifts and multiple ice ages -- only to nearly disappear in the time it took for bell-bottom jeans to come back in style.
''Back in the '70s, on a day like today, we'd have gotten 100 hellbenders,'' Solis said on this October day, ''and today we got four.''
Solis, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, Rolla, is part of a biological SWAT team aimed at finding out what is hurting the hellbender. Armed with water-sampling equipment, electronic tags, laboratory tests and plans for a captive breeding program, a coalition including state and federal agencies, universities and the St. Louis Zoo hopes to arrest the animal's slide into oblivion.
Scientists believe the fate of North America's largest salamander could hold clues to the health of the human race. Amphibians are sometimes called ''canaries in the coal mine'' because their highly permeable skin is sensitive to subtle changes in air and water quality.
Thirty years ago, Missouri was hellbender heaven. The state is the only one to have both subspecies of the now-rare animal. The Ozark hellbender lives only in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas; the Eastern hellbender has been found in 16 states.
Described by one researcher as ''so ugly only its mother could love it,'' the hellbender has a large, flat head made for slipping under rocks; tiny, beady eyes; and brownish, baggy skin that makes it look as if it is dressed in pajamas two sizes too large.
Scarcity in 1990s
Hellbenders appeared robust through the 1970s and 1980s, but alarms began to sound in the 1990s as people reported a scarcity of the animals. The Missouri Department of Conservation commissioned a survey of all hellbender streams in the late 1990s.
''What we found was, in every single river we surveyed, population numbers had decreased by 75 to 85 percent,'' said Alicia Mathis, a behavioral ecologist at Southwest Missouri State University. ''That was pretty shocking.''
Not only were there fewer animals, the population also had aged substantially. In a trend that continues to this day, most animals found were older adults. Eggs, larvae and juveniles were nearly impossible to find.
It appeared that hellbenders were not reproducing, or that something was killing the young. What could have nearly wiped out a species in just a few years?
Many obvious threats had risen over the past century. Logging, dams and development have cluttered Ozark streams with gravel and silt and robbed them of oxygen. Farming, mining and development taint water with chemicals that were unknown to the hellbenders for millions of years.
Trout introduced for sport fishing may eat hellbender eggs and larvae. Some animals have been taken for research, poached for the pet trade or killed by fishermen.
Yet these factors alone do not seem to explain the puzzle. Missouri scientists suspect another contributing factor: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals could be throwing the animals' reproductive systems out of whack.
Some pesticides, fertilizers, plasticizers and other chemicals can mimic hormones, wreaking havoc on endocrine systems that regulate growth, reproduction and other functions. Some evidence suggests these contaminants affect wildlife, as alligators, frogs and fish show up with abnormal sex organs.
The science of endocrine disruption is young and controversial. Pesticide manufacturers have disputed studies in Missouri, saying many studies and years of use show the chemicals to be safe and effective.
''Whether or not that's the cause of the decline remains to be seen,'' Mathis said. ''But it is definitely a suggestion that needs to be investigated more.''
Big changes ahead?
Fixing what ails the hellbender could require significant changes in the Ozarks, a remote area heavily dependent on tourism dollars from anglers, canoeists, hikers and campers.
The Missouri Conservation Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which are trying to help the hellbender recover, must grapple with whether their trout-stocking programs are part of the problem.
Until scientists understand the long-term solution, several moves are afoot to put the hellbender on life support.
The Missouri Coalition for the Environment has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Ozark hellbender as an endangered species. Currently, the hellbender is listed as endangered by the state of Missouri, meaning it is illegal to kill the animal or keep it in captivity without a permit. A federal listing would help protect the animal's habitat and encourage additional money for studying it, said Ted Heisel, executive director of the coalition.
Amy Salveter, a fish and wildlife biologist with the federal agency, said it recently moved the animal up on its priority list of candidates for endangered-species listing.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis Zoo has turned to a solution of last resort: obtaining a permit to remove up to three pairs of hellbenders from the wild to breed them. Solis helped two zoo staffers and a volunteer capture four animals on a recent trip.
One hellbender was missing a leg and several fingers -- a phenomenon that has become alarmingly common.
''We sure don't know what's going on there, but we need to find out,'' said Ron Goellner, the zoo's general curator, who has studied hellbenders in the Ozarks for 30 years.
Three of the captured salamanders were brought back to the zoo, where they live in an artificial stream Goellner built in the basement of the reptile house.
Nearby, 15 aquarium tanks hold about 150 young hellbenders that Mathis and her students raised by hand from rare clutches of eggs found in the wild.
These youngsters will be studied and perhaps bred one day. Zoo officials hope to have enough offspring to eventually return some animals to the wild.
For Salveter, the hellbender offers people a chance to work together to protect something special.
''I'm not saying the hellbender is a sexy, endearing creature that everyone is going to want to latch onto, like a whooping crane or a grizzly bear, but it sure is unique,'' she said. ''I think we need to heed these early warning signs. We should really be paying attention.''
Source: Seattle Times, November 03, 2004
By Sara Shipley
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
TECUMSEH, Mo. - Insulated by a thick black wetsuit, Mauricio Solis slipped under the surface of an Ozark stream in search of a prehistoric creature. He turned over heavy rocks one by one, scanning the bottom for a slippery figure the color of rotting leaves.
The cold, oxygenated water of the White River's North Fork holds some of the last remaining members of an amphibian family that has roamed this planet for 150 million years. The hellbender salamander has survived dinosaurs, tectonic shifts and multiple ice ages -- only to nearly disappear in the time it took for bell-bottom jeans to come back in style.
''Back in the '70s, on a day like today, we'd have gotten 100 hellbenders,'' Solis said on this October day, ''and today we got four.''
Solis, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, Rolla, is part of a biological SWAT team aimed at finding out what is hurting the hellbender. Armed with water-sampling equipment, electronic tags, laboratory tests and plans for a captive breeding program, a coalition including state and federal agencies, universities and the St. Louis Zoo hopes to arrest the animal's slide into oblivion.
Scientists believe the fate of North America's largest salamander could hold clues to the health of the human race. Amphibians are sometimes called ''canaries in the coal mine'' because their highly permeable skin is sensitive to subtle changes in air and water quality.
Thirty years ago, Missouri was hellbender heaven. The state is the only one to have both subspecies of the now-rare animal. The Ozark hellbender lives only in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas; the Eastern hellbender has been found in 16 states.
Described by one researcher as ''so ugly only its mother could love it,'' the hellbender has a large, flat head made for slipping under rocks; tiny, beady eyes; and brownish, baggy skin that makes it look as if it is dressed in pajamas two sizes too large.
Scarcity in 1990s
Hellbenders appeared robust through the 1970s and 1980s, but alarms began to sound in the 1990s as people reported a scarcity of the animals. The Missouri Department of Conservation commissioned a survey of all hellbender streams in the late 1990s.
''What we found was, in every single river we surveyed, population numbers had decreased by 75 to 85 percent,'' said Alicia Mathis, a behavioral ecologist at Southwest Missouri State University. ''That was pretty shocking.''
Not only were there fewer animals, the population also had aged substantially. In a trend that continues to this day, most animals found were older adults. Eggs, larvae and juveniles were nearly impossible to find.
It appeared that hellbenders were not reproducing, or that something was killing the young. What could have nearly wiped out a species in just a few years?
Many obvious threats had risen over the past century. Logging, dams and development have cluttered Ozark streams with gravel and silt and robbed them of oxygen. Farming, mining and development taint water with chemicals that were unknown to the hellbenders for millions of years.
Trout introduced for sport fishing may eat hellbender eggs and larvae. Some animals have been taken for research, poached for the pet trade or killed by fishermen.
Yet these factors alone do not seem to explain the puzzle. Missouri scientists suspect another contributing factor: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals could be throwing the animals' reproductive systems out of whack.
Some pesticides, fertilizers, plasticizers and other chemicals can mimic hormones, wreaking havoc on endocrine systems that regulate growth, reproduction and other functions. Some evidence suggests these contaminants affect wildlife, as alligators, frogs and fish show up with abnormal sex organs.
The science of endocrine disruption is young and controversial. Pesticide manufacturers have disputed studies in Missouri, saying many studies and years of use show the chemicals to be safe and effective.
''Whether or not that's the cause of the decline remains to be seen,'' Mathis said. ''But it is definitely a suggestion that needs to be investigated more.''
Big changes ahead?
Fixing what ails the hellbender could require significant changes in the Ozarks, a remote area heavily dependent on tourism dollars from anglers, canoeists, hikers and campers.
The Missouri Conservation Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which are trying to help the hellbender recover, must grapple with whether their trout-stocking programs are part of the problem.
Until scientists understand the long-term solution, several moves are afoot to put the hellbender on life support.
The Missouri Coalition for the Environment has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Ozark hellbender as an endangered species. Currently, the hellbender is listed as endangered by the state of Missouri, meaning it is illegal to kill the animal or keep it in captivity without a permit. A federal listing would help protect the animal's habitat and encourage additional money for studying it, said Ted Heisel, executive director of the coalition.
Amy Salveter, a fish and wildlife biologist with the federal agency, said it recently moved the animal up on its priority list of candidates for endangered-species listing.
Meanwhile, the St. Louis Zoo has turned to a solution of last resort: obtaining a permit to remove up to three pairs of hellbenders from the wild to breed them. Solis helped two zoo staffers and a volunteer capture four animals on a recent trip.
One hellbender was missing a leg and several fingers -- a phenomenon that has become alarmingly common.
''We sure don't know what's going on there, but we need to find out,'' said Ron Goellner, the zoo's general curator, who has studied hellbenders in the Ozarks for 30 years.
Three of the captured salamanders were brought back to the zoo, where they live in an artificial stream Goellner built in the basement of the reptile house.
Nearby, 15 aquarium tanks hold about 150 young hellbenders that Mathis and her students raised by hand from rare clutches of eggs found in the wild.
These youngsters will be studied and perhaps bred one day. Zoo officials hope to have enough offspring to eventually return some animals to the wild.
For Salveter, the hellbender offers people a chance to work together to protect something special.
''I'm not saying the hellbender is a sexy, endearing creature that everyone is going to want to latch onto, like a whooping crane or a grizzly bear, but it sure is unique,'' she said. ''I think we need to heed these early warning signs. We should really be paying attention.''
Source: Seattle Times, November 03, 2004