A pair of salamanders native to Virginia, the eastern hellbender and the yellow-spotted woodland salamander, are up for federal protections under the Endangered Species Act. But the Trump administration is aiming to redefine how habitat destruction factors into those protections.
More salamander species live in Appalachia than anywhere else in the world. And while The U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service previously declined to list the hellbender, late last year a new proposal was filed to get it protected.
Ramona McGee is a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. The organization’s worked on trying to get the hellbender listed. She said the Trump administration’s attempt to redefine a key term in the Endangered Species Act could complicate their work.
"The problem is that the agencies seem to be prepared to narrow their understanding of harm under the Endangered Species Act," McGee said, "so that habitat destruction would no longer be protected against."
The yellow-spotted woodland salamander lives in mountainous regions of the Commonwealth that have been affected by mining. During the past 20 years, there have been about 60 sightings of the amphibian, according to Butch Brodie, a University of Virginia professor and director of the Mountain Lake Biological Station in Southwest Virginia.
"Conservation biologists talk about this extinction vortex," Brodie explained. "So, when you get into small population sizes, that triggers a bunch of factors like inbreeding and genetic drift and demographic processes that make a small population smaller. So yeah, when you're down in those numbers, biologically, there's not much question that they're at risk.
If the salamanders do get listed, Brodie said plants and other amphibians likely would benefit as well.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.