Environmentalists Seek Help for Eastern Hellbenders

A group of researchers and environmentalists are seeking help for eastern hellbenders by filing a petition Thursday seeking endangered species protection in New York for the salamander species.

Hellbenders - one of the biggest salamanders in the world - inhabit only two river drainages in New York, according to The Associated Press (AP): the Allegheny and Susquehanna. In the past few decades their population numbers have been nearly cut in half in the Allegheny drainage, and they are on the verge of extinction in the Susquehanna drainage.

The hellbender was listed as a special concern species of New York State in 1983. It is listed as Endangered in Maryland, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana and is threatened in Alabama.

It goes to show that these aquatic salamanders, which can grow up to two feet in length, aren't just vanishing in New York. Nature World News reported back in July of environmentalists' concern for the rapidly disappearing species.

Scientists believe their dwindling numbers could reflect a plunge in the water quality of the swift-flowing, rocky rivers and streams they inhabit.

"These are animals that live up to 30 years in the wild, so if you have populations declining, that alerts us that there could be a problem with the water quality," Rod Williams, a Purdue University associate professor of herpetology, told the AP at the time.

Other explanations suggested for their decline are the damming of rivers and streams, which eliminates critical riffle areas and lowers the dissolved oxygen content, and the unintentional killing of fisherman who catch them, according to New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation.

Hellbenders, also commonly dubbed snot otters and devil dogs, are extremely unique animals, with "nothing else like them in North America," federal biologist Jeromy Applegate told the AP back in July.

So for this new coalition of scientists and environmentalists, protecting the extraordinary eastern hellbender is of the utmost importance.

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