wes_von_papineäu
Our Roving Correspondent
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT (Florida) 03 December 07 No newts is not good news (Bruce Ritchie)
Ecologist Bruce Means stood near a drying pond in the Apalachicola National Forest south of Tallahassee that was ringed by fading tire tracks.
Even when the ponds are dry, they’re important to the striped newt, a rare amphibian that lives in North Florida and South Georgia, Means said. But vehicles damage ponds and destroy vegetation surrounding them, threatening the striped newt and other species that depend on the ponds.
“This is a striped-newt breeding pond — or was,” Means said. “It was obliterated — as you can imagine.”
Other than a few scientists, probably few people have seen a striped newt or a gopher frog, another species that lives in the temporary ponds of the national forest. But those rare species are behind a clash on the future of vehicle use in the Apalachicola National Forest.
The U.S. Forest Service earlier this month approved a plan to restrict vehicles to numbered roads and designated trails in the forest. The plan was required by an agency rule adopted in 2005 to limit damage from vehicles nationwide.
The Apalachicola National Forest plan prohibits off-road recreational vehicles from areas east of Springhill Road. Those areas were placed off-limits because of striped newt ponds, said Denise Rains, a Forest Service spokeswoman.
Vehicle users say they don’t want to damage the forest. But they question why so much land has been declared off-limits because of a rare newt.
Striped newts are less than three inches long with two red stripes running down their bodies. They lay eggs in shallow ponds but spend much of their life in tunnels and burrows in the surrounding pine forest. They can live for 25 years.
Striped newts live as larvae in the edges of ponds where the water is just a few inches deep — when there is water. They depend on temporary ponds because there are fewer predators— such as fish— which can’t survive there when the ponds dry up.
The striped newts and more than 20 other amphibians spend much of their lives in the surrounding forest, where they become part of the complex web of life and the food chain in the Munson Sandhills, Means said.
But vehicles easily damage the ponds because their tires create deep ruts, which trap the larvae as water goes down. As the damaged ponds shrink and are used for four-wheeling, they become a mudhole “killing zone” for the few animals that are concentrated in them, Means said.
Striped newts were found in 18 of the 265 ponds that Means has monitored in the national forest since 1995. But since 1999, only three newts were found in only two of those ponds.
Means said some blame rests on the Forest Service for lack of prescribed burning. Fire prevents woody vegetation from taking over the marshy pond edges where the larvae grow.
But Means also places the blame heavily on vehicles. In 1994, 27 of 100 ponds that he surveyed had been damaged by vehicles. By 2006, damage was recorded on nearly every pond, he said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year told the Forest Service that the Apalachicola National Forest is one of five strongholds for the striped Newt in Florida. The service recommended excluding vehicles from large areas of the forest to prevent damage to new ponds.
Mike O’Lary, who rides a four-wheel-drive truck in the national forest, said the lack of newts raises questions about the removal of vehicles.
“If they found three striped newts in eight years, do they need to cut off 5,000 acres of forest?” said O’Lary, representing Florida4x4.com and the Tallahassee Off-Road Club. “Would 2,000 be more appropriate? If things were normal, would we expect a striped newt population of 5 or 500?”
“I don’t know the answers to those questions. But I do feel strongly having that kind of answer would make it easier for the four-wheel-drive recreational groups to say, ‘It makes sense to take away 5,000 acres.’”
Rains said if the species is not protected now, vehicles may have to be excluded from other areas for their protection.
And Means said the newts are around and the fact they haven’t been found in recent years is not significant. He said the newts are waiting in their burrows for the right conditions — good winter rains and suitable ponds — to return to for breeding.
“If these folks are mud-bogging around these ponds and also tearing up the upland habitat, they are going to create a negative situation when these animals go back to breed,” Means said.
The issue, he said, is about more than protecting just the striped newt or the gopher frog. He said all life on the planet has a right to exist and evolve — not just people.
Amphibians are like the canary in the coal mine — if they can’t survive, their disappearance could signal trouble for the rest of the world and for humankind, Means said.
“We will pay a dear price, if not the price of our own species, for losing the other life on this planet,” he said.
http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071203/BREAKINGNEWS/71203034
Ecologist Bruce Means stood near a drying pond in the Apalachicola National Forest south of Tallahassee that was ringed by fading tire tracks.
Even when the ponds are dry, they’re important to the striped newt, a rare amphibian that lives in North Florida and South Georgia, Means said. But vehicles damage ponds and destroy vegetation surrounding them, threatening the striped newt and other species that depend on the ponds.
“This is a striped-newt breeding pond — or was,” Means said. “It was obliterated — as you can imagine.”
Other than a few scientists, probably few people have seen a striped newt or a gopher frog, another species that lives in the temporary ponds of the national forest. But those rare species are behind a clash on the future of vehicle use in the Apalachicola National Forest.
The U.S. Forest Service earlier this month approved a plan to restrict vehicles to numbered roads and designated trails in the forest. The plan was required by an agency rule adopted in 2005 to limit damage from vehicles nationwide.
The Apalachicola National Forest plan prohibits off-road recreational vehicles from areas east of Springhill Road. Those areas were placed off-limits because of striped newt ponds, said Denise Rains, a Forest Service spokeswoman.
Vehicle users say they don’t want to damage the forest. But they question why so much land has been declared off-limits because of a rare newt.
Striped newts are less than three inches long with two red stripes running down their bodies. They lay eggs in shallow ponds but spend much of their life in tunnels and burrows in the surrounding pine forest. They can live for 25 years.
Striped newts live as larvae in the edges of ponds where the water is just a few inches deep — when there is water. They depend on temporary ponds because there are fewer predators— such as fish— which can’t survive there when the ponds dry up.
The striped newts and more than 20 other amphibians spend much of their lives in the surrounding forest, where they become part of the complex web of life and the food chain in the Munson Sandhills, Means said.
But vehicles easily damage the ponds because their tires create deep ruts, which trap the larvae as water goes down. As the damaged ponds shrink and are used for four-wheeling, they become a mudhole “killing zone” for the few animals that are concentrated in them, Means said.
Striped newts were found in 18 of the 265 ponds that Means has monitored in the national forest since 1995. But since 1999, only three newts were found in only two of those ponds.
Means said some blame rests on the Forest Service for lack of prescribed burning. Fire prevents woody vegetation from taking over the marshy pond edges where the larvae grow.
But Means also places the blame heavily on vehicles. In 1994, 27 of 100 ponds that he surveyed had been damaged by vehicles. By 2006, damage was recorded on nearly every pond, he said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last year told the Forest Service that the Apalachicola National Forest is one of five strongholds for the striped Newt in Florida. The service recommended excluding vehicles from large areas of the forest to prevent damage to new ponds.
Mike O’Lary, who rides a four-wheel-drive truck in the national forest, said the lack of newts raises questions about the removal of vehicles.
“If they found three striped newts in eight years, do they need to cut off 5,000 acres of forest?” said O’Lary, representing Florida4x4.com and the Tallahassee Off-Road Club. “Would 2,000 be more appropriate? If things were normal, would we expect a striped newt population of 5 or 500?”
“I don’t know the answers to those questions. But I do feel strongly having that kind of answer would make it easier for the four-wheel-drive recreational groups to say, ‘It makes sense to take away 5,000 acres.’”
Rains said if the species is not protected now, vehicles may have to be excluded from other areas for their protection.
And Means said the newts are around and the fact they haven’t been found in recent years is not significant. He said the newts are waiting in their burrows for the right conditions — good winter rains and suitable ponds — to return to for breeding.
“If these folks are mud-bogging around these ponds and also tearing up the upland habitat, they are going to create a negative situation when these animals go back to breed,” Means said.
The issue, he said, is about more than protecting just the striped newt or the gopher frog. He said all life on the planet has a right to exist and evolve — not just people.
Amphibians are like the canary in the coal mine — if they can’t survive, their disappearance could signal trouble for the rest of the world and for humankind, Means said.
“We will pay a dear price, if not the price of our own species, for losing the other life on this planet,” he said.
http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071203/BREAKINGNEWS/71203034