Sonoma State, Water Agency Team Up to Save Rare Salamander

An experiment is underway in Rohnert Park. A graduate student from Sonoma State University and the Sonoma County Water Agency are trying to save one of Sonoma County's rarest amphibians: the California Tiger Salamander.

While most of the local population is concentrated in Cotati and Northeast Santa Rosa, a few acres in Rohnert Park's grassy backyard are home to the slithery creature.

The problem is, the salamander's home, where it spends most of the year, a network of underground channels dug by ground animals such as gophers, is separated from its breeding grounds by a busy county road.

Now, funded with part of a $10 million grant from Caltrans that provides monies for environmental restoration projects, the county's public works department and water agency in October constructed three underground migration tunnels for the spotted creatures.

The project is one part of the Santa Rosa Plain Conservation Strategy to preserve upland and vernal pool habitat for California Tiger Salamanders in specific conservation areas in Sonoma County, officials said.

Now, Tracy Bain, a graduate student at Sonoma State studying biology, has hatched a grand plan to track the salamander and help divert them into underground the tunnels that pass under the freeway.

It saves their lives, scientists say. 

"We have a disconnect," said Dave Cook, of the water agency, who's been tracking the amphibians for the last 10 years. "We have a breeding pond on one side of the road, and we have upland habitat on the other side. Well, the salamanders have to cross the road to get to the pond to breed. And in nature, the strongest motivating forces is to reproduce and create offspring. So they cross the road and lots of them get squished."

Cook estimates that between five and 25 percent of the breeding population of Tiger Salamanders are killed during the season, which normally runs from October through February. 

But Bain's teamed up with Sonoma State volunteers and undergraduate students to track and save the samanders, and she's busier than ever due to the unseasonably dry season this year. The rains are coming later.

"My ultimate goal is purely research — doing sound science on these creatures," Bain said. "And my goal at the end is that they use the tunnels. So far it’s been pretty successful, but very inconclusive at this point becasue we don’t have a lot of salamanders yet. It’s been a really dry season."

The tunnels work by fencing that blocks the road, creating a pathway for the salamanders to follow through to their breeding grounds. Bain says by comparing behaivors and tracking the breeding populations, she'll be able to find out if the network of tunnels and fencing is working.

"It’s very hard to study an animal that lives underground," Cook said. "One of the ways to find them is at night, during a rain storm, when the salamanders come up out of their holes and migrate up to a mile to their breeding ground."

Cook and Bain say it's nearly impossible to count the living population of salamanders, but a barometer can be taken by counting the larvae in area breeding pools. There are an estimated 50 and 100 pools countywide, nearly half of which are manmade — constructed after developers are forced to mitigate their damage to the environment by building new ponds.

"The local population has taken a big hit," Cook said. "Our goal is to cut that 5-25 mortality rate in half to 3-13 percent. This project should go a long way in stabilizing this one breeding population."

Editor's note: Check out the fun Youtube video of the scenerio the salamanders face to the right. Scientists have asked us not to publish the exact location of the experiment, due to people who could harm recovery efforts.