Karen Chávez

kchavez@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE - Even though spring is a month away, any warm stray of winter sunshine will get people out and about in the woods and streams, skipping stones and kicking up rocks.

But the U.S. Forest Service in Asheville is advising visitors to enjoy the river resources, just leave them as you find them - especially the rocks.

Rocks aren’t in rivers just for looking pretty or providing a step bridge across the stream for humans, they serve as vital habitat for many aquatic species, most notably the ancient and odd-looking hellbender salamander.

The largest salamander in North America, it can grow to 2 feet long. But the hellbender is on the North Carolina list of endangered species and the federal list of species of concern, said Lorie Stroup, fisheries biologist on the Pisgah National Forest.

“We want people to enjoy the rivers, but we want them to leave it as they found it. It’s one thing to skip a stone with your child,” Stroup said. “It’s another thing when you’re starting to move hundreds of rocks to build a dam or build some kind of chute to get a tube down.”

As we inch closer to spring, that’s what starts happening, she said, and why the Forest Service is getting ready to install more signs that say: “Don’t Move the Rocks! Moving rocks will destroy the homes of many important fish, insects and salamanders.”

The first signs were installed about 10 years ago in areas where Hellbenders are known to live and breed, in high elevation, pristine streams in Pisgah National Forest. But many signs have gone missing or fallen into disrepair, she said.

The Forest Service wants to put up more signs to help educate people about this unique species that needs not only rocks, but pristine stream conditions to live.

The Eastern Hellbender is an ancient, nocturnal amphibian that often hides under the same rock for its entire adult life span, which can be up to 30 years. It emerges at night to feed largely on crayfish. The brown, mottled, slimy-looking creature with a large head and long tail has been referred to as “snot otter” and “dragon” because of its appearance.

It breathes through folds of skin along its sides. The hellbender has remained largely unchanged since the age of the dinosaurs and for millions of years has found a home in the waters of Appalachia.

But the salamanders now find themselves in perilous danger from loss and degradation of habitat. Sediment from runoff, prescription and over-the-counter drugs, personal care products such as soaps, fragrances and cosmetics and other chemical pollutants, and the physical disturbance of their rocky homes by unknowing boaters, swimmers and people tubing through their habitat, are suspected in contributing to the hellbender’s decline, state and federal biologists say.

“Once a nest rock is moved, hellbenders won’t ever use that rock again. It’s a biological thing,” Stroup said. “There’s not a whole lot of clean, pristine habitat left for hellbenders. A lot of time we were damming rivers and creating lakes, we lost a lot of that riverine habitat for aquatic species.”

The Forest Service, in cooperation with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission and Freshwaters Illustrated, produced a video found on Vimeo: “The Last Dragon – Protecting Appalachia’s Hellbenders,” to aid in educating the public about the hellbenders’ decline and how to help.

“They look like little dinosaurs. They’re awesome animals that need awesome habitat, which needs to stay there,” Stroup said. “If you see hellbenders in a stream, that means there are other organisms in that stream that will be in good shape.”

Learn more

To see the video, “The Last Dragon – Protecting Appalachia’s Hellbenders,” visit https://vimeo.com/108512185.