COVID-19 Is Not Such a Bad Thing If You Are a Spotted Salamander

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Courtesy photo

Brett Amy Thelen, director of the citizen science program for the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock.

Paula Tracy’s new column Out and About shows where to enjoy a hike without the crowds.

Welcome to Out and About, Paula Tracy’s column on finding great outdoor spots to enjoy and still keep your social distance.
By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

HANCOCK
– Thanks to COVID-19, spotted salamanders have a better chance at life this spring.

And for residents of the state who observe what is known as the BIG NIGHT, and offer themselves as amphibian crossing guards on warm, rainy nights, the job will be a little easier and different this year due to the novel coronavirus.

“We’re all just figuring it out as we go,” said Brett Amy Thelen, who has been directing the citizen science program for the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock for more than a decade.

Most springs, she teaches small armies to go out with flashlights and reflective rain gear to help amphibians negotiate road traffic from their vernal pools where they lay their eggs to their homes.

This year, there are no training sessions and veteran Big Nighters, like family groups, may go out to known crossing areas, but they will likely encounter less traffic as there are few essential businesses open and things to do at night during this horrible, worldwide human pandemic.

“This is an amazing time of year,” Thelen said, as the lakes thaw, the birds return and the amphibians move from their wintering to breed.

Paula Tracy’s favorite vernal pool in Center Harbor. Paula Tracy photo

To learn more about which nights might be the BIG NIGHT in your area, go to https://harriscenter.org/programs-and-education/citizen-science/salamander-crossing-brigades

It is usually whenever it first rains at night and stays above 40 degrees, could be this week or next depending on where you live.

She welcomes the sounds and sights of spring, which are well underway in the Monadnock Region, but are only beginning slowly in the mid part of the state and still have a ways to go, maybe a few weeks away in the north.

This spring, the sounds will likely be more prominent for many of us for because there will be less traffic noise.

If they are not yet making the noise where you are, the wood frogs will soon be “quacking” from vernal pools, and the peepers, with their high-pitched call to their mates, are alongside them.

In the fields, the beefy birds, the woodcocks at dusk are putting on aerial stunts for the girls, and the owls, particularly the barred owls which are most typical in the state, are also calling out with a call that sounds like someone saying, “Who cooks for you?”

Thelen said she is suffering a bit of withdrawal from personal interactions and the staff at the Harris Center who usually fan out at this time of year to go to schools and teach about the sights and sounds of spring are at home waiting for this COVID-19 epidemic to be over.

Until then, she suggests families and individuals learn about their surroundings in spring and help the state to identify a key habitat perhaps on their property: vernal pools.

“A vernal pool is a temporary body of water that provides essential breeding habitat for certain amphibians,” and is identified as critical habitat in New Hampshire’s Wildlife Action Plan because they are vulnerable to development and human impacts, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game edition “Documenting Vernal Pools of New Hampshire,” edited by Michael Marchand.https://wildlife.state.nh.us/nongame/documents/vernal-pool-manual.pdf

The manual, which you can download here, has a goal of helping to identify and document where these pools are and what may be in them that can provide indications of forest and habitat health.

Spotted salamanders, which die by the thousands each year moving across roads on the “BIG NIGHT” count on these vernal pools as a sort of nursery for their young.

Since 2007, the Harris Center and its volunteers have helped more than 47,250 salamanders, frogs, and toads safely cross streets on their way to and from vernal pools to breed. They actually pick the creatures up and carry them across the road, thereby avoiding death by tires.

Vernal pools are simply indentations in the land where water pools, but it’s temporary and will likely dry out in later months. This essential breeding habitat for wood frogs, spotted salamanders and some invertebrates like fairy shrimp can vary in size from several square feet to several acres.

These pools are not ponds, and that is key to protecting their eggs and larvae from fish that would eat them. The manual describes vernal pools as “stepping stones” in the forest, which connect with other land and water bodies throughout the life cycle.

After the snow and ice recede, the male salamanders arrives in the pool and await the females, while wood frogs and peepers arrive as well, emerging from their frozen depths. The salamanders have a mass mating ritual known as “congressing” in which the males produce gelatinous capsules that females fertilize.

The adults then leave the pool, normally on warm, wet nights, when the temperature is at least 40 degrees or higher, said Thelan.

From an amphibian perspective, she said, this coronavirus is “not a bad thing,” and the creatures will have “a better chance this year.”

The eggs take four to eight weeks to hatch and when they do, they are entirely an aquatic species but develop legs and jaws and in about three months (July to September) as the pool dries up, they leave the area and lose their aquatic gills entirely. They move to the upland forest where they spend their time until it is their turn to breed and head down into the vernal pool again.

If a house lot goes in and bulldozes the vernal pool, it impacts the whole life balance because other animals, like owls, feed on the salamanders.

This week, I encourage you to put on your boots and go out at dusk and follow the call of the wood frogs and peepers, discover a vernal pool and teach others about the importance of these little amphibian nurseries and maybe next year, sign up for a bit of training to help with the 2021 BIG NIGHT.

This year, Thelen is recommending that only those trained to deal with traffic at night go out on their own and those who want to learn to wait until next year.

For more information, including some great outdoor ideas to teach children about the outdoors, are here:https://harriscenter.org/category/school-programs

Send your outdoor story ideas to paulatracy6@gmail.com and stay well!

Paula Tracy’s first big hike was in 1975 with classmates from Concord up Mount Lafayette with  teacher and outdoor enthusiast Ned Bergman. She was 13 and was immediately captured by the wonders of New Hampshire’s great outdoors. It would lead to a lifetime love of exploring the woods, water, and wildlife in the Granite State. As a staff reporter, for 25 years at the NH Union Leader and then for WMUR.com, she has written about the subject extensively and continues here with the hope of connecting New Hampshire’s residents with their own backyard. 

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