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tiger salamander poison :: Article Creator

SAVING THE CALIFORNIA TIGER SALAMANDER

With its wide mouth charmingly outlined in yellow, the California tiger salamander always looks like it's smiling. But this beautiful amphibian is a discriminating species that can only thrive in unique — and now extremely rare — habitats. As California's vernal pools, grasslands and oak woodlands disappear, the tiger salamander has fewer and fewer reasons to grin. The species' plight is particularly extreme in Sonoma County, where development threatens 95 percent of remaining salamander habitat, and the Santa Barbara population — although it was listed as federally endangered in 2000 — is still on the verge of winking out.

The Center has advocated hard to protect the California tiger salamander under both the federal and the California Endangered Species Acts, as well as to force designation of critical habitat. Thanks to our actions, the Sonoma and Santa Barbara populations have been federally listed as endangered, the central California population is considered threatened, central California salamanders have been granted critical habitat, and the Sonoma population is on its way toward habitat protections. The California Fish and Game Commission was ordered to accept the Center's 2004 petition to list the entire species statewide, and in early 2010 finally granted the species state protection. 

However, the critical habitat designation for the central California population — made in 2005 under political influence — illegally slashed critical habitat in half, and in the same year, the Sonoma County population's critical habitat was completely eliminated. The Center submitted a notice of intent to sue the Bush administration over these and 53 other wrongfully made Endangered Species Act decisions in 2007, and we sued the next year. Our efforts paid off in 2011, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate 50,855 acres of critical habitat for the Sonoma County salamanders — leaving out some important areas, but making a crucial step toward salamander recovery.

Still, none of the California tiger salamander populations had recovery plans, so to earn them one we filed a lawsuit in 2012. Later that year we secured a court-approved settlement requiring the Service to develop recovery plans for all three populations of California tiger salamanders within the next five years. The Santa Barbara County population received a draft plan in 2015 and the central California population received a draft recovery plan in March 2016. In June 2016 the Sonoma County population received a final recovery plan and in June 2017 the central California population received a final recovery plan.

Through our Pesticides Reduction Campaign, we're also challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's registration and authorization-for-use of 46 toxic pesticides in and upstream of habitats for San Francisco Bay Area endangered species, including the California tiger salamander.


NATURAL HISTORY

CALIFORNIA TIGER SALAMANDER } Ambystoma californiense FAMILY: Ambystomatidae

Ambystoma is derived from either the Latin anabystoma, meaning "to cram into the mouth," or from amblystoma, the Greek for "blunt mouth."

DESCRIPTION: Large for a modern amphibian, the male California tiger salamander can reach up to 8.5 inches in length, the female up to seven. Adults have protruding eyes and long tails, and their slick bodies are mostly black with brilliant yellow spots and stripes on their back, sides, and tail. Larvae are greenish gray in color.

HABITAT: California tiger salamanders can be found in annual grasslands and oak woodlands with hot, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. For most of the year, they reside in underground burrows created and abandoned by small mammals. They need ephemeral pools for breeding.

RANGE: Historically these salamanders ranged throughout California's Sacramento and San Joaquin River valleys, the surrounding foothills, and the lower elevations of the state's central coast. Now their distribution is limited to disjunct vernal pool complexes in the northern part of their historical range. The northernmost and southernmost populations, residing in Sonoma and Santa Barbara counties respectively, are genetically distinct and geographically isolated from others.

MIGRATION: Once fall and winter rains begin, adult tiger salamanders emerge from underground hibernation habitat in mammal burrows and migrate to breeding ponds. After breeding, adults disperse back to uplands habitat to retreat underground. Adults may migrate long distances between summering and breeding sites: salamanders have been found along roads more than 1.2 miles from any known breeding ponds. Juvenile salamanders dispersing from ponds have been trapped more than 1,200 feet from their natal ponds.

BREEDING: Following early-winter rains, California tiger salamanders nocturnally emerge from their burrows and lay their eggs in newly formed vernal pools. After the eggs are fertilized internally, a female can lay up to 1,300, which she deposits individually or in small batches. Adults move back to their terrestrial burrows after breeding.

LIFE CYCLE: Within two weeks of egg fertilization, salamander larvae hatch, remaining in their natal pools for two to three months. By late spring or summer, once they reach metamorphosis, juveniles roam up to two miles away to hibernate in terrestrial habitat. Salamanders are thought to have lifespans of 10 years or more.

FEEDING: For the first six weeks of life, juveniles eat small crustaceans, algae, and mosquito larvae. Adult salamanders prey on aquatic insects, invertebrates, and tadpoles of Pacific tree frogs, California red-legged frogs, western toads, and spadefoot toads.

THREATS: The California tiger salamander is threatened by habitat destruction due to urban and agricultural development, habitat fragmentation, pesticides, hybridization with nonnative tiger salamanders, introduced diseases, and predation by nonnative species.

POPULATION TREND: Surveys showed that by 1993, the California tiger salamander had been extirpated from at least half of its historic localities. By 2004, only six tiger salamander meta-populations within 48 breeding ponds remained in Santa Barbara County, and by 2005, only seven viable tiger salamander breeding sites remained in Sonoma County.

 

Photo © Frank Schleicher





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