The mole salamanders and wood frogs only breed in vernal pools and hence are dependent on them for their survival. The surrounding woodlands also need to be preserved, given that these animals reside in moist forests. (Fields are too dry, plus the creatures’ small, stout legs can’t navigate the blades of grass, noted Saugerties-based naturalist and Ulster Publishing nature columnist Spider Barbour.)
Despite the significant loss of habitat in the Hudson Valley, the town of Saugerties still contains large tracts of relatively undisturbed woodland and hence is believed to support healthy populations of the salamanders. (No one knows the numbers. One of the purposes of Heady’s project is to obtain data so that environmentalists can learn more about the animals and the status of their populations.) The best way to spot them, said Barbour and Steve Chorvas, another Saugerties-based naturalist who has been out tracking the salamanders on the Big Night for many years, is to drive very slowly on a section of rural road located near a vernal pool on a rainy night, stopping to identify anything that moves within the range of the headlights.
The object often turns out to be just a leaf, but after a while, one develops “a sense for the creatures,” noted Chorvas. “Generally they’re moving slowly. When I encounter an area where there’s movement I pull over to the side and walk for half an hour. And then you see them. The spotted salamanders are so much bigger and have yellow spots, so they’re easy to detect.”
On a good Big Night—when there’s a hard rain and the mercury lingers around forty degrees—people have counted more than 100 amphibians crossing the road at certain spots. Ideally, Heady and other environmentalists would like to have these busy crossing areas manned during the migration period, to cut down on the high mortality, as well as have municipalities erect signage advising motorists to slow down or even possibly temporarily close the section of road where there are particularly dense concentrations of the animals.
The Big Night occurred on March 26 in 2009 and March 22 in 2010. However, last year the amphibians migrated over a series of nights, so there was no Big Night. This year has also lacked a single big night of migration, given the unusually mild temperatures and lack of rain.
The high-pitched screech of spring peepers and the duck-like quacking of wood frogs have been resonating from vernal pools and wetlands at least for a week now, so many amphibians have obviously already migrated. Environmentalists believe the Jefferson salamander, which is the first amphibian to migrate—it will enter the pools when there is still ice on the surface–has almost certainly moved.
However, it’s very unlikely all the amphibians have migrated, given the dryness and colder micro-climates found in the woods. So Barbour, Chorvas, Heady, and other local amphibian aficionados are planning on getting out the next rainy or wet night. Barbour, who in his work as an environmental consultant has conducted amphibian surveys at the United States Military Academy at West Point and at two Scenic Hudson preserves, Esopus Meadows and Black Creek, said he spotted a few salamanders and frogs on the night of March 7, when there was a sprinkle of rain.
If the dryness persists, he speculated that some salamanders might not move at all, given that “they always take the same route to the pool” and a bone-dry road would be a barrier.
