Speaking of saving salamanders, there’s some good work being done in Ohio. It helps a big, endangered Buckeye State native, the eastern hellbender, and, in its way, the people who are doing the work. Read the story. It quotes Joe Greathouse, among others, who speaks at Ohio State April 9. (Photo: Eastern hellbender by Brian Gratwicke, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.)
endangered species
Goal: ‘To get people to care while there’s still time’
Big thanks to National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore for his talk last night at Ohio State and to CFAES’s David Hanselmann and his colleagues in the School of Environment and Natural Resources and Environmental Professionals Network for serving as hosts. Some 800 people packed the Ohio Union’s Archie M. Griffin Grand Ballroom. If your interests include wildlife of all kinds and sizes (from veiled chameleons to Francois langurs to Sumatran tigers), photography, and saving Earth’s sadly, ridiculously threatened biodiversity, check out Sartore’s stunning Photo Ark project. (Photo: Scarlet ibises, joelsartore.com.)
Today at 4 p.m.: Fighting the frog-killing chytrid fungus
The rescheduled talk by Smithsonian scientist Brian Gratwicke (originally set for last week but postponed due to weather) is today, Feb. 26, at 4 p.m., part of the spring seminar series by CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources. Details here. He’ll speak on captive breeding of frogs in Panama, and using it as a stopgap while scientists try to come up with a way to manage chytridiomycosis. Chytridiomycosis is an emerging fungal disease killing amphibians (frogs, toads, salamanders, newts) in many places around the world, causing huge declines or the extinction of many species.
What delisting gray wolves could actually mean
Researchers with CFAES and four other institutions say the federal government’s proposal to discontinue protection for the gray wolf across the U.S. could have the unintended consequence of endangering other species. Read the story. (Photo by Gary Kramer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)
Snakes in good hands
Congratulations to Kristin Stanford, outreach coordinator at Stone Lab (a part of our college) and her collaborators, who were honored as a “Success Story” at the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Erie, Pa., on Oct. 26. Stanford — aka “The Island Snake Lady” and featured on a popular episode of TV’s “Dirty Jobs” — and team were recognized for their efforts in keeping the Lake Erie watersnake from extinction. Previously listed as an endangered species, the Lake Erie watersnake came off that list on Sept. 15.
Matter of trust
There’s a way to keep politics out of wildlife management — a way to keep formerly endangered species sustainable after they lose their federal protection — Jeremy Bruskotter of our School of Environment and Natural Resources and his co-authors say in the journal Science.
An Earth Day Present: Rare bird visits wetland
Visitors at the Earth Day Bird Walk at the Wilma H.Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park got a surprise this morning: the siting of a rare American Bittern.
During the walk, led by renowned birder Bernie Master, the bird was flushed from cattails in one of the created wetlands on the site. It was later observed flying over the wetlands by all of the bird walk participants.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Master noted, “The American Bittern’s migratory travels are little known and it is rare in central Ohio at any time of the year.”
Wetlands Director Bill Mitsch reports that this is the first sighting of this rare wading bird at the Olentangy River Wetlands.
The American Bittern is listed on Ohio’s Endangered Species list.