wes_von_papineäu
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POST-STANDARD (Syracuse, New York) 11 April 08 Anxious crossing for amphibians (David Figura)
Last Friday night it was warm and raining a perfect night for the annual mating migration of the spotted salamanders at the Labrador Hollow Unique Area.
Matt Kauffman, program manager at Baltimore Woods in Marcellus, led a group of more than three dozen nature lovers equipped with lanterns and flashlights to check out the massive migration, which is spectacular, but has a dark side as well.
The salamanders, upon awakening from their wintertime hibernation in the woods on the eastern mountain side of the hollow, cross over Route 91 in large numbers to reach the vernal or springtime pools where they mate each year. Motorists traveling down the road in northern Cortland County at peak migration sometimes run over hundreds of the colorful, slimy creatures that get up to 8 inches long.
Throw in the scores of peepers and wood and green frogs that are also moving over Route 91 this time of year, and you have the makings of a messy roadway.
"Some nights it just gets gruesome. There's guts, heads, legs all over the road," said James Gibbs, an associate professor in SUNY ESF's Department of Environmental and Forest Biology.
"But during the night and early morning, the raccoons and crows clean things up," he said.
Kauffman, who also brought a group down last year, said the salamander migration is "really quite impressive." This past Friday, his excursion to the hollow included an "interpretive walk" away from the road to the vernal pools, where the amphibians were massing to mate.
He said the migration across the road on Friday was slight at first, but picked up substantially at about 9:30 p.m.
Spotted salamanders are dark blue or black in color with yellow (sometimes orange) spots and are widespread throughout eastern North America. They spend most of their adult lives underground, though they can be found beneath surface debris on cool, damp days. They feed on worms, insects, centipedes, spiders and other small invertebrates.
The annual mating migration has attracted the attention of SUNY ESF, which is studying the event as a tiny, unfunded part of a $250,000, five-year project concerning the annual mating migration of snapping turtles and other reptiles and amphibians that travel over the state's roadways, said David Patrick, who's working under Gibbs as a post-doctoral student.
The study, among things, is trying to determine what the state Department of Transportation can do to make the roadways safe for motorists and migrating creatures alike. One way might be putting in culverts to allow them to travel underneath the roadways without getting run over, Patrick said.
The salamander migration lasts for about two weeks, typically starting sometime around the end of March or the beginning of April, depending on the weather. It should finish up by this weekend, Kauffman said.
Seeing them travel in great numbers across the road "is a bit of a transformative experience," Gibbs said.
"They're a beautiful, deep blue with yellow spots. It's like something you'd see in Borneo," he said.
http://www.syracuse.com/articles/outdoors/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/1207904196107240.xml&coll=1
Last Friday night it was warm and raining a perfect night for the annual mating migration of the spotted salamanders at the Labrador Hollow Unique Area.
Matt Kauffman, program manager at Baltimore Woods in Marcellus, led a group of more than three dozen nature lovers equipped with lanterns and flashlights to check out the massive migration, which is spectacular, but has a dark side as well.
The salamanders, upon awakening from their wintertime hibernation in the woods on the eastern mountain side of the hollow, cross over Route 91 in large numbers to reach the vernal or springtime pools where they mate each year. Motorists traveling down the road in northern Cortland County at peak migration sometimes run over hundreds of the colorful, slimy creatures that get up to 8 inches long.
Throw in the scores of peepers and wood and green frogs that are also moving over Route 91 this time of year, and you have the makings of a messy roadway.
"Some nights it just gets gruesome. There's guts, heads, legs all over the road," said James Gibbs, an associate professor in SUNY ESF's Department of Environmental and Forest Biology.
"But during the night and early morning, the raccoons and crows clean things up," he said.
Kauffman, who also brought a group down last year, said the salamander migration is "really quite impressive." This past Friday, his excursion to the hollow included an "interpretive walk" away from the road to the vernal pools, where the amphibians were massing to mate.
He said the migration across the road on Friday was slight at first, but picked up substantially at about 9:30 p.m.
Spotted salamanders are dark blue or black in color with yellow (sometimes orange) spots and are widespread throughout eastern North America. They spend most of their adult lives underground, though they can be found beneath surface debris on cool, damp days. They feed on worms, insects, centipedes, spiders and other small invertebrates.
The annual mating migration has attracted the attention of SUNY ESF, which is studying the event as a tiny, unfunded part of a $250,000, five-year project concerning the annual mating migration of snapping turtles and other reptiles and amphibians that travel over the state's roadways, said David Patrick, who's working under Gibbs as a post-doctoral student.
The study, among things, is trying to determine what the state Department of Transportation can do to make the roadways safe for motorists and migrating creatures alike. One way might be putting in culverts to allow them to travel underneath the roadways without getting run over, Patrick said.
The salamander migration lasts for about two weeks, typically starting sometime around the end of March or the beginning of April, depending on the weather. It should finish up by this weekend, Kauffman said.
Seeing them travel in great numbers across the road "is a bit of a transformative experience," Gibbs said.
"They're a beautiful, deep blue with yellow spots. It's like something you'd see in Borneo," he said.
http://www.syracuse.com/articles/outdoors/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/1207904196107240.xml&coll=1