Indigo Magazine

Indigo

The Member Magazine of The Orianne Society

Issue 5 • Summer 2016

magazine

Boreal Toad Eastern Indigo Snake Hellbender Salamander Wood Turtle

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staff Christopher Jenkins

Photo: Pete Oxford

Chief Executive Officer

Wood Turtle:

Great Northern Forests

28

Heidi Hall

Development Director

Stephen Spear

Appalachian Highlands Initiative Director

Dirk Stevenson

Longleaf Savannas Initiative Director

Brannon Knight

Longleaf Savannas Initiative Stewardship Coordinator

8

Amanda Newsom

Communications Specialist

18 Eastern Hellbender: Appalachian Highlands

Eastern Indigo Snake: Longleaf Savannas

Charli Palmer

Program Manager

Patty Li

Accountant

contributors

Member Spotlight

50

4 Species Spotlight: Great Basin Rattlesnake

Photo: Scott Bolick

Photo: Kelly O’Connor

6

issue

Field Photos

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52 Upcoming Events

Photo: David Hutto

38

Photo: Dirk Stevenson

Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

Lauren J. Livo

Boreal Toad: Montane Colorado Photo: Catherine Stevens

Longleaf Savannas Initiative Species Coordinator

Photo: Kevin Stohlgren

Photo: Pete Oxford

Houston Chandler

55 Take Action

Indigo Magazine Issue 5, Summer 2016 Indigo Magazine is the member magazine of The Orianne Society and is produced, designed and edited by the staff of The Orianne Society.

CONTACT The Orianne Society 11 Old Fruit Stand Lane, Tiger, GA 30576 706-224-1359 info@oriannesociety.org www.OrianneSociety.org

@OrianneSociety

Indigomagazine

message from our CEO

Photo: Pete Oxford

Throughout my life, I have been inspired by images of wildlife and wild places. In particular, photographs and paintings of wildlife have always provided me with a great appreciation for the landscapes in the background. It was not until I studied conservation biology in college that I learned the term “flagship species” and had a way to characterize the species that inspired me to care about broader landscapes.

As I developed The Orianne Society, the concept of flagship species played an important role. I think many of us can imagine a picture of your favorite reptile with a wild landscape in the background, and it will inspire not only an interest in the species conservation but also for the landscapes it needs to survive. While many organizations have moved away from species conservation, Orianne continues to be species focused. But our speciesfocused efforts are strategically planned to have more far-reaching impacts.

A flagship species is one that serves as an icon or an ambassador for something broader like a community of species, a landscape or a particular issue. Here at The Orianne Society we are concerned with the conservation of ecosystems, including diverse community assemblages and critical habitats. For each of our initiatives, we have a focal flagship species for conservation. For example, Eastern Indigo Snakes, Eastern Hellbenders and Wood Turtles are all flagship species for the Longleaf Savannas, Appalachian Highlands and Great Northern Forests Initiatives, respectively. The focal species we work with are all in need of conservation, but they are also powerful ambassadors for wide-ranging ecosystem conservation.

Our focal species, while serving to inspire, are also selected because they are effective umbrella species—or in other words, if we do a good job of conserving them, we will also conserve many other

species. As an example, Eastern Indigo Snakes use large landscapes that include upland sandhill habitats and bottomland swamps. Thus, conserving Indigo Snakes also conserves other species such as Gopher Tortoises and Spotted Turtles.

Over the years there has been criticism of single-species approaches to conservation, but I think when you select species that can serve as flagships and umbrellas, you can simultaneously conserve priority species while achieving broader goals.

Images, whether they be photographs, paintings or sculptures, are playing an increasingly important role in conservation.

I encourage you to find images that

inspire you, consider the impact of your actions and support Orianne’s efforts to conserve focal species so we can make a more significant impact together.

Sincerely,

Dr. Christopher Jenkins, CEO

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SPECIES spotlight

Photo: Dirk Stevenson

by Amanda Newsom

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The Great Basin Rattlesnake is a subspecies of the

Photo: Charles Peterson

Western Rattlesnake and can be found in northern California, eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, most of Nevada, eastern and western Utah, and just into northern Arizona. Western Rattlesnakes are the only rattlesnakes that have wide distributions in the cold deserts of North America. They prefer habitats within drier regions and with sparse vegetation that have a rocky area nearby for overwintering. Generally, they are found on the ground but can sometimes climb shrubs or trees, and they occupy burrows, crevices or caves during cold weather.

These snakes can vary in color—from buff-gray, yellowish gray or light brown—and have less prominent blotches down their midline compared to other subspecies of Western Rattlesnakes. They have 25 to 27 rows of large, keeled scales.

Great Basin Rattlesnakes typically mate during the active season between May and July and give birth to live young from August to October. Litter sizes range from three to 13 newborns—litter size increases with the size of the female—which are about 10 inches long. Juvenile Great Basin Rattlesnakes have the same pattern features of adults, but their colors are usually more vivid. Their diets consist of small mammals, birds, lizards and amphibians.

Though they are not listed as a declining species, like most other reptiles, Great Basin Rattlesnakes face threats of habitat loss and degradation due to agricultural expansion and urbanization, roadways, human persecution and the conversion of the sage brush steppe to an invasive annual grassland.

The Great Basin Gopher Snake has similar markings to the Great Basin Rattlesnake and even mimics its venomous counterpart by twitching its tail to create a rattle buzz sound, so people sometimes misidentify the snakes for one another. This leads to both species facing the threat of human persecution due to a lack of knowledge about the animals and their importance to the world.

30-54 FANGS SUBSPECIES Adults grow to be 30 to 54 inches long, typically seen at 3 to 4 feet long.

Great Basin Rattlesnakes, like all rattlesnakes, can re-grow broken fangs.

Great Basin Rattlesnakes are one of five Western Rattlesnake subspecies, along with Southern Pacific, Northern Pacific, Grand Canyon and Midget Faded Rattlesnakes.

ORIANNESOCIETY.ORG SUMMER ISSUE 2016 5

Indigomagazine

MEMBER spotlight

by Amanda Newsom

Photo: Catherine Stevens

CATHERINE STEVENS & HANA LEONARD

Hana Leonard at Places You’ve Never Herped 6 in the PeeDee River Basin of South Carolina.

This summer we’re putting the member had lost a close friend to a Timber Rattlesnake bite that wasn’t spotlight on mother-daughter duo, Catherine Stevens and Hana Leonard. Catherine and Hana have been Orianne members since 2013 and 2014 respectively. Catherine is the primary reason Hana, age 12, is a lover of herps, and her love goes back to childhood, as well. She remembers going “snake hunting” with her dad as a child for the first time, flipping rocks and looking for snakes until Catherine paused to ask, “What’s a snake?” Though her father 6 ORIANNESOCIETY.ORG SUMMER ISSUE 2016

treated quickly enough, he never instilled a fear of snakes into Catherine but instead poked fun of fear of the unknown. She was intrigued by the beauty of a species with such venom and sought them out for admiration—and now to conserve them.

These days, Catherine, Hana and the rest of their family enjoy taking hikes and exploring together—family outdoor adventures that typically involve looking for reptiles and amphibians.

Indigomagazine

Photo: Catherine Stevens

When asked what they like most about being Orianne members, Catherine says she’s impressed with our land management and acquisition efforts to conserve reptile and amphibian habitat. “There seems no more of a vital job than land management.” Hana’s favorite part is the community involvement and comradery among members. She loves getting to find new species surrounded by others who are as passionate as her and says, “The members make sure everybody is included, no matter the age or differences. I am very happy for that because I like to see people encouraging kids or teens to do reptile and amphibian conservation.”

Catherine and Hana are currently volunteering in the French Broad drainage around Asheville, NC, to help us collect environmental DNA samples for Eastern Hellbenders as part of our Appalachian Highlands Initiative. They are also active volunteers for the North Carolina Herpetological Society to engage the public through outreach and education efforts, and Hana is a member of their youth committee.

From all of our staff, we thank you both for your time and dedication to The Orianne Society and to reptiles and amphibians!

Photo: Hana Leonard

Catherine most enjoys finding unexpected species while exploring and has a soft spot in her heart for the Spotted Salamanders that use her koi-less koi pond as a breeding ground. On her “to find” list is a Southern Hognose Snake, Tiger Salamander and a Timber Rattlesnake among their local disjunct population. Hana, on the other hand, really loves to find snakes. Although she’s only found one so far in the wild, her favorite snakes are hognose snakes because of their death-feigning displays, and she hopes to find an Eastern Indigo Snake during an upcoming Indigo Days event.

While looking for herp identifications and habitat information a few years ago, Catherine stumbled upon The Orianne Society’s website and saw an upcoming Places You’ve Never Herped (PYNH) in Bladen Lakes, NC. She signed up and says of that event, “This was certainly one of the best decisions I made for myself and for [Hana].” She was pleasantly met by the eagerness of the other members to learn more about all of the herps. “The members are spirited, unique individuals who genuinely care about reptile and amphibian welfare.”

After that, Catherine brought Hana to the next PYNH event and was happy to see how Hana—then only 10 years old—was seamlessly included in the group, particularly by our Longleaf Savannas Initiative Director, Dirk Stevenson. “Watching Dirk interact with a curious young Hana and igniting a spark in her with his intellect and enthusiasm is a highlight for which I am grateful. I can still see the two of them standing in a murky swamp looking for turtles.”

Catherine has now attended a total of six Orianne citizen science events, and Hana has participated in five including our PYNH in Costa Rica where they were able to help release Olive Ridley Sea Turtles. Catherine says of that experience, “Watching the turtles make their way to the ocean is a memory that will stay with us. It may be the exact moment Hana decided she would like to incorporate sea turtle welfare into her future plans.” Hana naturally remembers the trip fondly, as well!

Catherine Stevens during a night herping adventure.

Hana Leonard dip-netting for amphibians.

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Indigomagazine

by Dirk Stevenson

The Eastern Indigo Snake, flagship species for conservation of our Longleaf Savannas Initiative, was first described to science as Coluber couperi by John E. Holbrook in 1842. The specific epithet is a patronym honoring James Hamilton Couper, the man who brought the type specimen of the Indigo Snake to Holbrook. Per Holbrook’s description, the type specimen was found in “the dry pine hills south of the Alatamaha River, GA.” (Note: “Alatamaha” is an old spelling for Altamaha.)

In the mid-19th century, James Hamilton Couper (1794-1866) was one of the largest landowners on the Georgia coast. His holdings included a 5,000 acre tract (the Hopeton-Altama Plantation) along the south side of the Altamaha River, close to the coast where the river widens, where he grew rice and sugar cane. Couper introduced a system of dikes, canals and rails to move his rice and sugar efficiently to the river for transport into nearby Darien. Historians regard Couper as perhaps Georgia’s greatest “Renaissance Man”—he led the survey party which mapped the GeorgiaFlorida border and built Christ Church in Savannah; he was also an accomplished paleontologist and geologist and an avid student of natural history. Couper collected everything from fossil ground sloths to spiny mussels. In addition to being honored by Coluber (now Drymarchon) couperi, a freshwater mussel is also named for him.

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Illustration: John E. Holbrook

Indigomagazine

Indigomagazine In this article, I share my recent experiences investigating the type locality for the Eastern Indigo (i.e., where the Indigo used in Holbrook’s description was found) and provide details about the scientific description of the species. I also discuss the significance of the Eastern Indigo in an ecological context and why The Orianne Society is working to save the species.

In Search of the Type Locality, Part 1

within a half hour of beginning our wadehike, we become disoriented. Taking in the view in all directions, all one can see for hundreds of yards in every direction is verdant foliage over dark water. This has to be one of the prettiest places I’ve been—sunshine filtered through the canopy bathes new, shiny leaves in a green-gold light; anoles dance and display before jumps between vines. There are thousands of Blue Flag Irises in bloom, their vibrant lavender flowers shoot up from the shallow swamp as if announcing life.

It all looks the same, plus our eyes are glued to what is close to us and soon to be underfoot (so far we have spotted two Cottonmouths, the first an exceptionallylarge specimen Andy spotted curled up inside a mini-fortress of knobby cypress knees). It’s been a cool spring—the Cottonmouths are basking regularly but haven’t moved yet. They are still warming up for their hunting season.

We’re experienced field biologists, meaning we can joke about being lost in a

Photo: Dirk Stevenson

In April I join my friend Robert Horan, wildlife biologist (and herp aficionado) with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GADNR), and Andy Day, an accomplished naturalist who conducts nesting surveys for rare birds, including the swallow-tailed kite. Today, we’ll be exploring the former Hopeton-Altama Plantation. The tract was recently acquired by GADNR and is now a state

conservation land, the Altama Plantation Wildlife Management Area (WMA).

Horan grew up near Kneeknocker Swamp in Brantley County, GA. He has thick hair crammed under a too-tight ball cap and a heavy blond beard; his eyes twinkle, and he has an easy, infectious smile. In conversation his love of the land and wildlife are evident as he drifts seamlessly from wild pigs (“I caught a small sow this morning in my dove field trap.”) to fish (“Brother, that backwater is eat up with bream beds!”) to herps (“Let me ask you about fecundity of these Florida Softshells—the large females in my mom’s pond are the size of flying saucers…”). Andy, by comparison, is quiet. Slender with a shock of salt-andpepper hair, he glides easily through the swamp. In South Georgia naturalist circles, Andy is renowned for his ability to find Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnakes at Gopher Tortoise burrows. He is always alert for clues that lead to bird nests.

Robert has previously explored this swamp—the fact is, I have, too. Even so,

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Indigomagazine 5,000-acre river swamp. When we huddle on a small island, Robert says don’t worry about our lack of GPS or compass, we just need to find “the dike.” Then he spots the tree he has been looking for, a breathtakingly large Loblolly Pine that has an odd wishbone split in the trunk (like a Saguaro Cactus, one trunk becomes two) about 30 feet up. “We’re good,” he says.

“There’s the old dike. We can walk north for about a mile, then cross a deep ditch.”

We may have to swim, he adds. “Then, we’ll take another dike west to the marsh canal before returning home via the old tram trail.” Sounds like he has it figured out; I hop in line.

I contemplate the incongruity of the enormous Loblolly (i.e., a giant specimen of an upland pine species in the middle of a cypress swamp) as we mount the dike. The old berm, a straight-lined, miniridge about 25 feet across and elevated five feet above the water, is clearly a man-made feature. Then it hits me: the monster lobber, these big live oaks and that whopper Mockernut Hickory next to me—their surface roots extending over the dike like giant wooden claws, trying to help their mother trees find purchase in flimsy ground—relate to the handiwork of James Hamilton Couper. And they date from his creation of this dike (1840).

For two hours we hike and herp, stopping only to photograph a barred owl that lands directly above us (it issues a single, anguished howl before launching a stare-down). This has to be two of the most herp-heavy hours I have ever spent in South Georgia, and we find an impressive diversity of species: Lesser Sirens, Central Newts and an amphiuma via netting bottom goo; mud and musk turtles, including females laying eggs; Green Treefrogs, Bronze Frogs, Narrowmouth Toads, skinks and over 10 snakes, including Red-bellied and Banded Watersnakes, climbing Rough Greensnakes and ratsnakes, a ringneck

The Altamaha River, formed by the confluence of the Oconee and Ocmulgee Rivers, snakes 137 miles through the Coastal Plain of southeastern Georgia before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean near Darien. It is the largest free-flowing river on the east coast of the United States. This major watershed drains about one-fourth of the state of Georgia.

A forested swampy floodplain, up to five miles wide and encompassing an estimated 170,000 acres, buffers the river. In recognition of its beauty and uniqueness, due to its unique character and rich natural diversity, The Nature Conservancy placed the site on their list of “The 75 Last Great Places.”

A wild and beautiful stream, the Altamaha River and the habitats along its shores are home to endemic fish and mussels, rare plants, swallow-tailed kites and the endangered shortnose sturgeon. If you know where to go, you can visit stands of virgin Bald Cypress over 1,000 years old. Early naturalists William Bartram and Francis Harper traveled here, both writing of the now legendary Franklinia alatamaha—a small attractive-flowered tree related to camellias and to Loblolly Bay (Gordonia lasianthus) that is long extinct in the wild.

The Altamaha River drainage region is a recognized population stronghold for a number of amphibian and reptile species, including the Gopher Tortoise, Eastern Indigo Snake and Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake.

A target conservation area for The Orianne Society, the Altamaha River drainage is the epicenter of our Longleaf Pine ecosystem management and habitat restoration programs, which are headquartered at our Orianne Indigo Snake Preserve (OISP) located on the banks of the Ocmulgee River near Lumber City, GA. The Altamaha River region is also a focal area for our imperiled snakes of the Longleaf Savannas Initiative because this area is of notable conservation significance for a number of declining species (Eastern Indigo Snake, Southern Hognose Snake, Florida Pine Snake, Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake). Here in the Altamaha River region, we have monitored populations of the federally-threatened Eastern Indigo Snake for over eight years. We frequently participate in environmental education-driven events and efforts in the Altamaha River basin, as well.

I dearly love wild rivers for their beauty; like people, their character personalities vary, yet they are all the same in ways, drawing water and moving water. I draw spirituality from the Altamaha, and I go there frequently, often just to be alone with the river. It is a place of calm. These are waters of life, death, birth and renewal. And loads of wildlife!

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Indigomagazine and four more Cottonmouths.

Over lunch—our table an enormous fallen Water Tupelo—we discuss that first Indigo, Couper and Holbrook’s discovery.

Robert begins, “Did you know that when the famous geologist Sir Charles Lyell [1797-1875] visited Couper here at Altama, Couper took him canoeing on the lower Altamaha where they birdwatched.” Robert points north. “Couper told him about an observation he made of porpoises attacking an alligator.

Incredible!”

Andy says, “Well, you can’t help but wonder: how many Indigos did Couper encounter? Did he stumble upon some giant ones? Do you think they commonly got bigger back in the day?”

I follow with, “I would ask him if he was astonished and shocked, like I was, the first time he happened up on a fullgrown Indigo.”

I relate a story that Couper told Holbrook, about children holding a large wild Indigo that lived near their home— by the tail, they gently played with it, letting the snake lead them around the yard. Couper told Holbrook that the locals didn’t kill Indigos; apparently they recognized their value as venomous snake exterminators.

Andy says, “Pretty cool. So they practiced a form of snake conservation even before snake conservation. Accepted that a large, tame viper-eater is a good snake to have around.”

It’s quiet for a while, then one of us says, “Wouldn’t it be something if Indigos were still here?” There are no recent confirmed sightings for the Altama Plantation WMA site. In fact, there aren’t any old museum specimens either, but we can safely assume the species once occurred here historically.

Although Couper’s type specimen Indigo may well have come from Altama, we can’t be certain. In the notes that accompany the type specimen, there is no mention of a specific locality, a date or the name of the

individual who actually collected the snake.

The type locality is described simply as “the dry pine hills south of the Altamaha River, Wayne County, GA.” And Altama is actually in Glynn County today. Many think that the simplest explanation is that the specimen was brought to Couper from a contact-friend who captured it in Wayne County and that Couper subsequently delivered it to Holbrook. Because of the fragmentary nature of the notes, we may never know for sure…

But Robert may have seen an Indigo on-site last month. A rustling under the shrubs drew his attention, and when he investigated, he was able to make out the form of a shiny black snake, a giant Broadhead Skink in its jaws. The snake, carrying prey, fled into the palmettos.

“Honestly, I didn’t get a good look. I mean it was a racer or an Indigo, but if a racer, a pretty dang big one.”

“I do think an Indigo would be happy here,” he adds. “There’s certainly plenty to eat. Lots of Gophers still, too, though nowhere near as many as there could be,” Robert says. “This place hasn’t burned in forever. And traffic associated with I-95 can’t be helping matters.” (The property is now bordered immediately to the east by Interstate 95).

I say, “Guys, for an interesting historical perspective, do the math: 1842 to 1978. One hundred and thirty-six years separate the scientific description of the Eastern Indigo from when it was first listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).” In the 38 years since Indigo populations have continued to decline, they remain protected. “Couper and Holbrook couldn’t have envisioned the ESA anticipated the Anthropocene Era or imagined the field of conservation biology—that so many species, Indigos included, would be in peril.”

After lunch, Horan escorts us to a tidal creek that empties into a brackish marsh—in five minutes we have gone

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from freshwater crawdads to fiddler crabs.

Fiddlers by the thousands, the males wavedisplaying their giant white claws from tree trunks and other perches. We start to ease back; doing so we pass the tabby ruins of the sugar mill where only last week a Coral Snake was spotted prowling the rubble.

Minutes later a pinkish, two-foot-long Canebrake Rattler hustles across our path as we approach.

We cross a rickety bridge to the tune of croaking juvenile alligators, one of several pods of young gators that Robert knows of on-site. For all we know, these little crocodilians could be the descendants of the ones Couper told Lyell about. A group of Yellowbelly Sliders plop one at a time into a deep-water safety refuge farther up the canal. They are big ones, their awkward, thunderous splashes akin to rolling bowling balls into a swimming pool.

Altama remains a wild and diverse site. Our all-day sojourn takes us through maritime hammocks where mossfestooned live oaks are ornamented with painted buntings, over wild blackwater streams and through wet pine flatwoods rimmed with aromatic titis. Everywhere are swamps, swamps, swamps. It was once beautiful Indigo Snake habitat, and hopefully the species, if not present now, will recolonize the tract in the future.

The Species Description of Coluber couperi A type specimen is the particular specimen (or in some cases a series of specimens, with one specimen being designated as the holotype and the remainder as paratypes) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, the type is an example that serves to anchor the defining features of a particular taxon.

Indigomagazine condition.

When I received photos of the type specimen, I stared long and hard. I was looking at history. Those large hard plates and characteristic scalation that lend Indigos a confident, regal expression are present. I pored over the reptile’s face, a face that once struck terror in fleeing rats, frogs and vipers. I tried to contemplate the snake’s life in the wild (in South Georgia in 1840)—and given that the snake is but a small (circa five-foot) adult, I wondered who or just what brought this Indigo’s life to a premature end.

Holbrook, deservedly, is a pillar in the field of herpetology. A genus of earless lizards (Holbrookia) and the Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii) are among the taxa named in his honor. The night before joining Rob and Andy in the swamp, I was again reading my dogeared copy of Holbrook’s North American Herpetology, marveling at his wonderful writing. Portions of his original species description of the Eastern Indigo Snake are quoted directly to the right:

Synonyme: Indigo Snake, or Gopher Snake.

Colour: The superior surface of the animal is of a deep bright bluish-black, of a beautiful metallic lustre in the sun.

Dimensions: The snake frequently exceeds eight feet in length, and individuals have been seen 10 feet long.

Geographic Distribution: The dry pine hills south of the Altamaha River and have never met with it in the low grounds even in the same vicinity.

General Remarks: Although in several respects resembling the Black Snake (Coluber constrictor), it differs from it so very materially that the two snakes cannot be confounded even by the most careless observer.

A section titled Habits is also included in Holbrook’s description. Here, Holbrook, not being well-acquainted

Photo: Pete Oxford

As mentioned before, the type specimen of the Eastern Indigo Snake was brought to John Holbrook by James Hamilton Couper sometime around 1840.

John E. Holbrook (1796-1871) was a Beaufort, SC, physician and zoologist who authored the classic and ground-breaking North American Herpetology, or A Description of the Reptiles Inhabiting the United States (1842). He first described the Eastern Indigo Snake to science in this publication, naming the species for Couper, the man who brought him the type specimen. It should be noted that Couper also shared extensive notes with Holbrook regarding the natural history of the Indigo Snake, some of which occurs verbatim in the original description.

The holotype, an adult male, resides at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Recent photos of the type specimen sent to me by Kenney Krysko show what look, to me anyway, like any number of pickled-in-formaldehyde museum specimens. The skin is sloughing and discolored some, and the eyes are cloudy, but given its antiquity, the specimen appears to be well-preserved and in good

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Indigomagazine with the Indigo Snake in nature, borrows heavily from notes sent to him by Couper, who he profusely acknowledges. Couper describes the snake as terrestrial and docile and also comments on the species’ strength, courage and boldness, with the adjective “courage” appearing twice in his remarks, once in a sentence describing the Indigo’s penchant for eating rattlesnakes: “It is perfectly harmless, frequenting the neighborhood of settlements, where it is usually unmolested, from its inoffensive character, and the prevalent belief that it destroys the rattlesnake, which it attacks with courage.”

Taxonomy is fluid, an ever-changing science. With additional information over time, revisions occur. Post-Holbrook’s description and today (1842-2016), snake systematists have placed the Eastern Indigo Snake in three other genera: Georgia (1853), Spilotes (1860) and, since 1929, Drymarchon (Amaral). Drymarchon can be translated from the Greek as follows: Drymos: oak coppice or forest; archos: leader or commander (presumably in reference to the snake’s large size). Thus, “Lord of the Forest” or “Forest Commander” are appropriate descriptions of/for the Eastern Indigo. The snake is now formally known as Drymarchon couperi, The Eastern Indigo Snake.

Photo: Pete Oxford

In Search of a Type Locality, Part 2

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Deciding to make another effort to investigate the Indigo Snake type locality, I travel to the most undeveloped portion of the lower Altamaha region. I have reports, from old-timers and other knowledgeable persons, of Indigo Snake sightings from some still-intact sandhills in this part of Wayne County. These are remote sand ridges, separated by vast swamps and accessible only by boat or during low

Indigomagazine

“There is something enduring that circulates in the heart of nature that deserves our respect and attention.”

Photo: Pete Oxford

—Terry Tempest Williams

water. As they are close to the county Couper frequented, it’s possible that the type specimen snake originated from this part of Georgia.

Needing directions, I arrive at dawn at a small bait shop at the bottom of a steep hill along the river. Out front, a relaxed woman with earnest blue eyes leans on a 1980s-model black Trans-Am with blue rims that has seen better days. She is dressed in a blouse adorned with a picture of a smiling catfish and pajama bottoms patterned with large colorful circles (red, blue, yellow—think floor mat for the board game Twister). The hair along the mid-back of her dog, a five-pound Chiweenie sort of thing, rises sharply in irritation at my approach. Her cigarette smoke melds into the morning mist. From the porch I hear a comforting, gentle bubbling of the aerator that’s keeping the shiners breathing.

“Looks like pup has a Mohawk. Y’all been busy?”

“Welcome to our Altamaha River,” she says with obvious pride. “His name is Wiener, and he will bite if you come close.

Shellcracker are bitin’ good, so yeah, we’re

moving a lot of bait. And, a big weekend coming up.”

I introduce myself and describe my mission, my interest in locating those islands of sand ridge surrounded by jungles of river swamps. She is from here and familiar with Indigos.

“You heard of it, would you know how to get there?”

“Oh, yeah, well that is a wild and snaky place. You are looking for what the locals call the Road to Nowhere. First, you wanna go on down to the what we call the Honey Shack (it’s a long abandoned apiary where hundreds of old bee boxes are stacked will-nilly), then take your next right. About seven miles you will drive across a slough—should be shallow now, so you are okay—then stay left at the fork and go a half mile. When you see a huge leanin’ hat rack cypress with an old yeller rope swing dangling from it, you’re close.

Next trail to your right—I would walk in from there. Good luck, and come by again, I have many snake stories.”

The fog has lifted. I thank her, but before mounting up, I walk to the edge of the river for a look. The river is without

sound until I get to the very edge—is it even moving? The quavering notes of a Bird-voiced Treefrog travel to me from somewhere across the river. From a distance I spot a very large, dark bird flying toward me, progressing upstream in a purposeful manner. I pause to wait for the bird, marveling at the power of its muscular wingbeats and what is perhaps a calculated position right above the midpoint of the wide river, smack dab on the Wayne/Long county line, you might say. It’s an adult bald eagle.

I find the rope swing trail and park where she advised. Then I wade a half mile across what is now a thigh-deep slough to get to the ridge. Wading the slough takes me through a remarkable grove of old-growth Bald Cypress. The knees that encircle some of these mammoth stems are 15 feet tall, and the giant trunks resemble legs of brontosauruses. When the waters in this slough recede in early summer, you can visit the 1,000-year-old trees in person; one can easily fit inside some of the hollow-boled, but still live, cypress (and Tupelo Gum) trunks and cavort with hand-sized wolf spiders while

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Indigomagazine listening to the suckling of baby big-eared bats.

Eventually, I emerge on a vast mountain of sand, a mile-long chunk of ridge that takes me most of the day to explore. The sand here, decorated by ethereal lichens which lend a fairyland atmosphere, is yellow-white and gritty-coarse. Locals call such this nutrient-limited soils “sugar sand” and “gopher dirt,” the latter in reference to the Gopher Tortoises that make a living here.

I know for a fact that many folks in rural South Georgia ate Gopher Tortoises well into the 1960s and 1970s. One oldtimer told me of a snugly-wrapped box under a 1960s Christmas tree that would intermittently twitch and shift—the box held a large, and very much alive, Gopher Tortoise, a food gift for the family matriarch who was delighted to unwrap her prize.

The ridge is gorgeous and a fine habitat for Indigos. Encouragingly, I can tell within five minutes (and from observing three dozen active burrows) that this site is well-stocked with tortoises. After the temps warm, I encounter olive racerunners that kick up sand as they sprint off and Blue-bellied Fence Swifts that climb the wizened trunks of ancient oaks. A chuckwill’s-widow explodes from underfoot before flying moth-like into the shadows.

For some time, I lose myself in the animal prints that pepper the sand—millipede trails, ant lion paths and the tracks of armadillo, deer, raccoon, bobcat, even an otter. Then a smooth flat slide, in no uncertain terms the fresh print of a very large snake. I feel my heart beat. It’s a big snake (Indigo or Eastern Diamondback), and I so want to meet it…

Could the type specimen Indigo that Couper carried to Holbrook have come from here? Yes, I suspect this could have been the place. But, as alluded to earlier, we may never know for sure.

Why Save the Indigo Snake?

We designated the Eastern Indigo Snake as the flagship species of The Orianne Society’s Longleaf Savannas Initiative because we want to lead the fight to save the species.

The Eastern Indigo Snake was one of the first snake species to be federally listed under the ESA in 1978, and a thorough status review conducted in 2008 by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and recognized Indigo Snake experts determined that, unfortunately, the snake population continues to decline (due to continued habitat loss and fragmentation, loss of wetlands, decline of Gopher Tortoises) and that continued listing as Threatened is warranted.

As you may know, over much of the species range, Indigos heavily use or even require Longleaf Pine ecosystems, sandhills and flatwoods especially, for varied aspects of their ecology. Most notably from about Gainesville, FL, north, Indigo Snakes require Gopher Tortoise burrows in xeric sandhill habitats for coolseason shelters.

Like our Indigo, a number of other amphibians and reptiles endemic to Longleaf Pine ecosystems are faring poorly.

Two species of ambystomatid salamanders which occur only in mesic Longleaf where they breed in small depressional cypress pond wetlands, the Reticulated Flatwoods Salamander (Ambystoma bishopi) and the Frosted Flatwoods Salamander (Ambystoma cingulatum) are currently listed federally as Endangered and Threatened, respectively. Their habitats have been adversely altered by fire suppression, ditching and commercial forestry practices that result in soil disturbance and climate change.

In the 1990s, I worked closely with

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Ambystoma cingulatum surveying over 1,000 potential breeding wetlands in southeastern Georgia (I found salamanders at 21). Bear in mind, historically there were tens of thousands of isolated ponds where, every autumn, these intricatelypatterned chocolate-colored worm-like amphibians squirmed from abandoned crawfish burrows to tackle an arduous migration (under Wiregrass clumps, past hungry gartersnakes) to breeding ponds.

Today, the species is known from only a single breeding site in Georgia; sadly, the salamander population may be in an extinction vortex. Witnessing such a dramatic decline has left me confused, depressed, shaken. It is difficult to watch something you love disappear, and I have vowed to do all within my power to prevent the Indigo from following a similar trajectory.

Many reptiles of the Longleaf Pine ecosystem are in trouble, too. The Mimic Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus mimicus), one of four species of “joint snakes” known from South Georgia, lives in places where Wiregrass and other species of bunchgrasses form knee-deep clumps. It was last documented in Georgia in 1978.

And recent status surveys conducted in Georgia by The Orianne Society indicate that the few remaining Southern Hognose Snake populations left in the state are now widely isolated, fragmented by large expanses of unsuitable habitat.

Real conservation challenges face these species and directly confront the biologists who work with them. Last week I received a call from Brannon Knight, Stewardship Coordinator of our Longleaf Savannas Initiative, informing me that an adult Indigo Snake had been discovered that morning dead on the highway at the entrance to our preserve. Over the next two weeks, two more dead-on-road Indigos from South Georgia were brought to me.

The migratory nature of the Indigo

Indigomagazine component of our history, of our natural heritage, not to mention a vital cog in the Longleaf Pine ecosystem. So that folks, young and old, can experience the awe and happiness of meeting up with an Indigo for the first time.

There is a timeless quality to watching a muscular Indigo circle then suddenly enter the dark confines of a Gopher Tortoise burrow. The Indigo seems to gather his or her bearings via a few tongue flicks as well as visual reconnaissance. As you know, even big snakes are lithe and move with a supple grace and agility (i.e., they move like snakes!). Even so, it can be comical to watch an Indigo enter a burrow—as gravity and the snake’s size take over

(remember, it’s crawling downhill), the reptile, on some occasions at least, finds itself on what is essentially a ski slope of sand and henceforth topples awkwardly into the burrow depths at an appreciable speed.

For me, it is satisfying to think that the work of The Orianne Society, including our numerous collaborative efforts with other agencies, herpetologists and conservation biologists, may in some way help save the Eastern Indigo Snake and allow populations of this imperiled snake to recover.

Photo: Pete Oxford

—that is to say its vagile lifestyle and frequent travels between habitats, plus the very large home ranges exhibited by some individuals (up to 3,500 acres for some large males)—means this snake will always have serious issues with habitats being partitioned by roads. To borrow a quote from the late Roger Conant, the Eastern Indigo is “a snake chiefly of large, unsettled areas.”

But we can also view this in a positive way: the very large areas of unfragmented habitats that are required (generally tens of thousands of acres) to support large Indigo Snake populations invariably contain a mosaic of habitat types, both upland and wetland, and support astonishing plant and animal diversity.

We can accurately term the Eastern Indigo an umbrella species, as effective conservation management of an Indigo Snake population will in turn capture and protect a diverse suite of plants and animals.

I cheered when I recently heard that Brannon and his colleagues, in 2016, had surpassed their previous record for most acres burned in a calendar year. Remember, to keep the Longleaf Pine ecosystem functioning naturally, it must experience regular growing-season fires. The sensational species richness known to the groundcover layer of intact, well-managed Longleaf—on par with the plant diversity per area of some tropical rainforests—is a product of fire management. Moreover, at Orianne we value Scarlet Kingsnakes and Yellow Pitcher Plants, Barking Treefrogs and prairie warblers every bit as much Indigos and Gopher Tortoises. They are also significant pieces of the Longleaf Pine ecosystem puzzle.

So, why should we save the snake?

So that we (and our children and their children) can visit wild places where great predators are still to be found. Because the Indigo, an icon of wilderness and the Deep South, is an interesting and valuable

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Photo: Pete Oxford

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by Dr. Stephen Spear

I’ve spent a lot of time lately reading scientific papers that revolve around fish occurrence and biodiversity. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but it’s not what typically leads up my reading list. So why the shift in my reading habits? It is because I am trying to figure out effective strategies for Eastern Hellbender conservation in the southern Appalachians, and suddenly fish papers become highly relevant. And not just fish, but mussels, crayfish and macroinvertebrates. In other words, I’m taking a crash course in stream ecology as I investigate the best strategies for Hellbender conservation, and it is obvious that Hellbenders, fish and aquatic invertebrates are tightly linked in this system.

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Flagship species are but one of several ways in which conservation biologists choose focal species to aid conservation of larger ecosystems. Below I provide brief definitions for four types of these categories along with some examples.

FLAGSHIP SPECIES

Flagship species help to raise awareness of important conservation issues and habitats. While flagships can represent ecologically-important species, it is much more important that they be charismatic and easily associated with a conservation need. Perhaps the most famous flagship species is the giant panda (the logo of the World Wildlife Fund), but other examples include tigers, elephants and bald eagles.

INDICATOR SPECIES

There are several ways to define indicator species, but for the purpose of this article, I am considering indicator species to be those that respond to environmental changes before other species and can serve as an early warning of upcoming environmental problems. Classic examples include filter-feeding mollusks as indicators of water pollution or high-elevation species in response to climate change.

UMBRELLA SPECIES Umbrella species’ habitat requirements also encompass many other species’ within that same ecosystem. Therefore, by conserving the umbrella species, many other species will be protected, as well.

Umbrella species typically have large body size and large home ranges. Species proposed as umbrella species include jaguars in Central America, grizzly bears in North America and tigers in Asia.

KEYSTONE SPECIES Keystone species play a key role in the ecosystem, and the loss of that species would change the ecosystem significantly. The idea of a keystone species came from a famous study that demonstrated that the removal of starfish led to overpopulation of mussel species and to loss of overall diversity.

Wolves in Yellowstone National Park have also been proposed as keystone species through their role of preventing overgrazing by elk. Another type of keystone species is the ecosystem engineer, which are species that physically change the environment to the benefit of other species. Examples include the burrows dug by Gopher Tortoises, wetlands created by beavers and open areas maintained by elephants.

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Indigomagazine Appalachian streams are truly global hotspots for aquatic diversity. Almost half of all known fish species in the United States and Canada are found in the Appalachian Mountain ecosystem.

The region also has the greatest diversity of freshwater mussels and crayfish of anywhere in the world. And, of course, it is one of the most important areas for salamander diversity. While many of these salamanders are terrestrial and not directly reliant on Appalachian streams, the status of the forests is strongly linked to stream health (more on that later). Living among all this aquatic biodiversity is the Eastern Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis), the lone representative of its taxonomic family in North America and a species without an ecological equivalent throughout its range. At The Orianne Society, Eastern Hellbenders are the flagship species for our Appalachian Highlands Initiative and our conservation priority for protecting Appalachian streams.

The idea of a conservation flagship species has become a widespread concept for conservation organizations as a whole. The reasoning behind promoting a flagship is that it not only benefits the single species of focus, but it also helps conserve the larger ecological community to which it belongs. In both the scientific community and in the general public, there is confusion as to what a flagship species actually represents, and the term is often used interchangeably with labels such as indicator species, umbrella species and keystone species.

Each of these terms represents a way in which single-species conservation can help maintain the entire ecosystem, but the pathway in which that happens differs significantly among them. A species can represent several of these categories but is unlikely to fulfill the criteria for all of them. In the case of Hellbenders, I argue that they not only fulfill the role as a flagship species for Appalachian

streams, but strong arguments can be made for them as both indicator and umbrella species, as well. Throughout the remainder of this article, I will discuss the Eastern Hellbender in each of these roles, intertwining our Hellbender conservation efforts with a discussion of how it can benefit other species across the Appalachian Mountain ecosystem.

Hellbenders as a Flagship Species Unlike indicator species or umbrella species, there may be very little ecological justification for the choice of a conservation flagship. The role of a flagship species is primarily to create awareness for conservation, so the species needs to appeal to the public and be easily associated with the region, habitat or issue for which it represents. Therefore, the two top qualities for a flagship are being charismatic and being confined to one habitat. Certainly having scientific studies that demonstrate an ecological role or sensitivity to disturbance is also a useful flagship characteristic, but I would argue that it’s secondary to the first two. Flagships demonstrate what becomes clear to any conservation biologist: that conservation is not effective without incorporating the wants and needs of people. And flagships can have remarkably wide-ranging effects.

For my generation, one of the most important flagship species is the northern spotted owl. Spotted owls are found in the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, a region with a long history of logging, and many of the old-growth forests were being cut down. In the 1980s as spotted owls declined, they became a symbol for old-growth forests in general, and in 1994 the Northwest Forest Plan was implemented and was largely based on the range of the spotted owl. The plan led

to a significant reduction in logging across the Pacific Northwest, and doubtless had an impact on many species characteristic of these forests.

The spotted owl example also demonstrates a drawback of the focal species approach: it can create a scapegoat for those opposed to the conservation action and create polarizing public opinion. The timber industry was very concerned about the loss of jobs with the Northwest Forest Plan, and the spotted owl was vilified, with bumper stickers that advocated killing of owls and fake owls being hung in effigy. While it is unlikely that many, if any, wild owls were purposefully harmed by people (they are very difficult to find), it is important to think about strategies that reap the benefits of a flagship species without turning them into scapegoats.

Reflecting on the flagship characteristics, we easily decided that Eastern Hellbenders should serve as a flagship for Appalachian streams. They certainly fulfill the criterion of being confined to the stream habitat, although a large number of other river species also fit that category. So essentially, our promotion of the Hellbender as a flagship species for Appalachian streams relies on its charisma.

At face value, the Eastern Hellbender seems to be an unlikely charismatic hero when compared to the typical flagships such as giant pandas, elephants, tigers and gorillas. It has been featured in a blog called Endangered Ugly Things. It lives under rocks and ambushes crayfish, a lifestyle characteristic of a troll or Gollum. When handled, it basically secretes snot all over its body. In short, if a Hellbender was in a Disney movie (and I’m not holding my breath for that), it would almost certainly be the villain.

So is The Orianne Society just deluding itself by holding up this species as a symbol of the Appalachians? On the contrary,

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Indigomagazine against all odds, Hellbenders are being promoted as flagships by several different groups, not just us. I think there are a few different reasons for this. The first is that there aren’t a lot of obvious candidates for river flagships. Mammals are by far the most common conservation flagships, and there are not a lot of mammals directly associated with mountain streams.

The most obvious mammalian candidate would be the river otter, but it is not

many other Appalachian stream species that fascinate people in the same way as Hellbenders (although we acknowledge that the Hellbender is not the only suitable flagship for river conservation).

Hopefully I’ve convinced you that Hellbenders can be considered a charismatic species in their own unique way, but that is less useful if many people aren’t already familiar with what Hellbenders are and if it doesn’t translate

encounter people during our field work, and we are beginning to work more with local school classrooms.

People are getting to know Hellbenders. The next question is whether they are immediately thinking of Appalachian streams when the Hellbender is mentioned. I’m not aware of any research yet on this topic, but logically, it is hard for me to imagine how you wouldn’t immediately think of rivers and

The recruitment (or lack thereof) of Hellbenders is one of the most important issues to address in Hellbender conservation and should be a concern for all of us as to what it means for our rivers. totally aquatic like Hellbenders. Instead, the candidates are largely fish, amphibians and invertebrates, none of which are considered cute and cuddly.

In the relative vacuum of obvious stream ecosystem flagships, the Hellbender stands out for its weirdness and its large size. Humans have long been fascinated with the idea of “river monsters,” and Hellbenders give the impression of a river monster. It is true that many people have still never heard of this species, but once they are introduced to it, they are rarely ambivalent about it. This is reflected in not only the unique common name, but also in its many nicknames: Snot Otter, Allegheny Alligator, Grampus. You don’t nickname things for which you have no interest. With the exception of trout, which are popular primarily due to their economic and recreational value, it is difficult to think of

to an awareness and concern for stream ecosystems as a whole. Therefore, a key objective of our Hellbender conservation program revolves around outreach and education, often in partnership with other organizations.

For instance, the Help the Hellbender website (https://www2.ag.purdue.edu/ extension/Hellbender/Pages/default. aspx) run by Purdue University has become a clearinghouse of Hellbender information with multiple contributors, including The Orianne Society. The North Carolina Zoo worked with a local community college to create a Hellbender mascot costume named Snotty. The Orianne Society frequently shares stories and videos about Hellbenders on social media to help spread the word. We are also increasing local knowledge of the species through direct outreach when we

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streams when envisioning a Hellbender.

A Hellbender photo is either going to show it in the water, immediately adjacent in the water or in some biologist’s hand with water in the background. If someone encounters a Hellbender in the wild, it’s either going to be by watching this ancient salamander lumber across the river bottom or (more likely) by accidentally bringing up this animal from the depths of a river on a fishing line. Either way, it provides an image of not just an animal that needs water, but something that comes from the very heart of the river, supporting the notion that there is no conceivable way a Hellbender could last in this world without these mountain rivers in their natural state. I suspect that when many people learn about Hellbender declines, they must immediately think about what is going wrong in the rivers.

Indigomagazine predation. The increased awareness of Hellbenders has helped to dispel many of these myths, and it is important for our outreach efforts to continue to assure people that Hellbenders are harmless.

It’s also important to continually

phrase many times if you’ve read anything about amphibian conservation. It is intuitive why we might think amphibians serve this role: they tend to have permeable skin that takes in contaminants from the environment, and they often live in both

that has occurred in cases like the spotted owl. This is especially pertinent because the Hellbender does already have some misconceptions surrounding it that lead to dislike and fear by people.

To begin, its name suggests something from a horror movie. In fact, there are myths that Hellbenders are poisonous, dangerous to people and can wipe out game fish populations. Of course, none of this is true. They are not poisonous, and while the mucus they secrete surely tastes disgusting, it won’t kill you. The Hellbender’s primary prey is crayfish, and there is no evidence that they have the capacity to wipe out any species through

focus on the positive aspects that stream conservation efforts have for people and to associate Hellbender populations with those benefits.

aquatic and terrestrial environments and so would be affected by degradation in both these ecosystems.

But, in reality, I fear the indicator concept is becoming overused and losing its meaning for effective conservation.

The label of an indicator species is rapidly becoming synonymous with flagships: species that are associated with a specific environment and would be affected by changes in that environment. A true indicator species should be a species that has a very clear and measurable response that occurs before the negative environmental effects have spread to everything in that ecosystem.

Photo: Pete Oxford

I’ve been very impressed by the speed in which Hellbenders have progressed toward becoming an iconic North American species in the short five years that I have been working with them, but we also must be careful to avoid the negativity

Hellbenders as Indicator Species The idea of indicator species is very popular in conservation, especially so for amphibian conservation. A 1990 New York Times editorial first equated amphibians with the analogy of a “canary in a coal mine,” and you’ve doubtless seen that

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Photo: Stephen Spear

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A landowner near Boone, NC, admiring an Eastern Hellbender found on his property during one of our surveys.

One of the best examples of an effective environmental indicator was the birds chronicled in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring which demonstrated the potential effects of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and other pesticides through their current impact on songbirds and birds of prey. The subsequent ban on DDT for agriculture likely eliminated many potential future environmental health issues, but it also led to recovery of many of the indicator species affected.

I think the case can be made that Hellbenders can serve the role of an effective indicator species, although with a caveat that we may not yet know the exact threat the Hellbender is warning us about.

But first, let me take a step back and acknowledge that the Hellbender is already heavily touted as an indicator species for clean water and river health.

There is truth to this, as Hellbenders do require conditions characteristic of clean water. Still, finding out Hellbenders have disappeared from a river usually means that there is already obvious sedimentation or pollution that doesn’t require a biological indicator.

In fact, as pointed out by Hellbender researcher Greg Lipps at the most recent Hellbender symposium, this is actually a tough species that has survived millions of years with lots of environmental change.

The oldest Hellbender-like fossil dates

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back to the Jurassic, which means giant salamanders survived the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs. Furthermore, we can find adult Hellbenders in degraded habitat, and we pick up low concentrations of Hellbender environmental DNA (eDNA) in some silty, degraded rivers.

So while loss of Hellbender populations is definitely a sign that rivers aren’t healthy, it usually isn’t a reversible early warning either. Instead, I propose a specific aspect of Hellbender populations as an environmental indicator: whether they are successfully reproducing, and if those juveniles are surviving to join the adult population, a process known to scientists as recruitment.

The recruitment (or lack thereof) of Hellbenders is one of the most important issues to address in Hellbender conservation and should be a concern for all of us as to what it means for our rivers. The majority of Hellbenders that we find at most sites are large adults, without intermediate or larval size classes.

Furthermore, many of these sites are in protected areas and look like clean, healthy rivers.

One of the best, and most confounding, examples of this is in one of The Orianne Society’s priority landscapes, the Greater Smoky Mountains. This landscape has lots of conservation land, but in the major drainage of the landscape, the Upper Little Tennessee River, you can count on one hand the number of sites that appear to have stable, reproducing Hellbender populations. Most puzzling are places like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which only has one stable Hellbender site despite a large acreage of protected forests and streams. What, if anything, does this mean for our Appalachian streams?

The answer is probably complicated, but figuring it out could be really important for helping to recover not only Hellbenders, but also the fish, crayfish and mussels that also rely on these streams. Unlike adult Hellbenders, which can persist under a variety of rock shelters or even in stream banks, eggs, larvae and juveniles have more specific habitat requirements that include a mix of boulders, cobble and gravel, as well as low levels of sedimentation and highly-oxygenated water. Although we currently think of Hellbenders as a rare and difficult-to-find species, they actually tend to have high population densities in reproducing sites.

For instance, the now-endangered Ozark Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi) had population densities of several hundred per stream

Photo: Pete Oxford

Indigomagazine

kilometer in the 1960s and 1970s. Even today at a few remaining sites primarily in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, Eastern Hellbenders can be readily found with relatively little search effort.

If we assume that the primary cause for Hellbender declines is something related to the environment of the stream, then stable Hellbender populations are an excellent indicator because they can be easily identified. If one has to search three hours to find a single Hellbender, then it is almost certainly not a stable population.

If we accept this as our metric of stream health, then our early warning sirens should be blaring.

The next step is trying to figure out exactly what stressors Hellbenders are responding to and if this is generalizable across many stream species.

In collaboration with partners across Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, we are currently attempting to identify environmental and landscape factors that are consistent with these remaining stable populations. Determining which environmental factors consistently predict Hellbender recruitment will be a great tool for managing Appalachian stream systems.

Another idea for using Hellbenders as a biological monitor is focusing on the availability of nest rocks. Hellbenders use specific rocks to provide cover for laying and attending to eggs that must remain stable over time and must provide a chamber that has good water flow to oxygenate the eggs. A lack of egg-laying nest rocks can be attributable largely to sedimentation that fills up all the spaces under the rocks; to surrounding urban and road surfaces that lead to fast runoff during storm events; and to subsequent moving of boulders from their original location. The cause of this is usually directly related to loss of forest cover, and there are a number of papers that have noticed changes in fish assemblages as well, in which fish species that require low levels of sediment for spawning are gradually replaced by more generalist fish species as forest cover is diminished.

An open question is whether the number of suitable nest rocks (flat boulders with low embeddedness and cavity entrances) is a good indicator of Hellbender population status as well as an identifier of streams that are beginning to experience increased sedimentation.

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While it is great that Hellbender conservation has the potential to benefit many species, it is a daunting challenge.

Hellbenders are most vulnerable during the larval stage, and many of them are eaten before being able to reach adulthood.

Therefore, to persist, Hellbenders need to lay a lot of eggs, and this requires a lot of suitable rocks. We can even monitor potential nest rocks during the fall breeding season with underwater cameras to identify how many nests actually exist at a site.

Using Hellbender habitat (represented by availability of suitable shelters) could serve as an indicator of increased stream sedimentation. Such monitoring could be really important for places like the national park, where we assume the extensive forests will protect streams from sedimentation. But other factors, such as roads, could be leading to sedimentation even with forest cover, and managers could then begin to take action to reduce sedimentation due to features like roads.

Hellbenders as Umbrella Species The umbrella species concept is similar to flagship species in that conservation of one species represents other species

occupying that ecosystem. In the case of flagships, the species becomes a symbol for the region, but conservation of umbrella species directly benefits other species occupying the same habitat. The idea is that by protecting and managing habitat for the umbrella species, you are at the same time protecting and managing habitat for the larger animal and plant community.

A classic umbrella species is one that is sensitive to disturbance but that has a large home range or is migratory and uses several specialized habitats. This line of thinking makes sense: if you need to conserve a wolverine or bear that ranges over hundreds to thousands of square miles, you are going to be covering a lot of other home ranges. In practice, scientists are unclear whether umbrella species really lead to increased conservation of diversity, and there is a lack of examples where umbrella species have been definitively shown to be successful.

Hellbenders are clearly not classic umbrella species. In fact, they have small home ranges and do not appear to move very often. Still, I would argue that Hellbenders fit the concept of an umbrella species in a non-traditional way. Hellbenders may be relatively

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stationary, but their local site within a stream is affected by the entire upstream watershed. Both fish and Hellbender studies have demonstrated that forest cover throughout an entire watershed is critical for streams to retain their original biodiversity. Furthermore, development alongside rivers and streams can have significant effects on sedimentation and water quality for miles downstream.

Finally, Hellbenders tend to occur in larger stream and river systems and not near the headwaters, meaning they are potentially affected by activities within the majority of the watershed. For these reasons, maintaining healthy and stable Hellbender populations would require conservation across the entire watershed, which would also be important for protecting other Appalachian stream species.

While it is great that Hellbender conservation has the potential to benefit many species, it is a daunting challenge.

With the exception of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, most of the Appalachian watersheds represent multiple land ownerships, and much of it is private. It requires strategic thinking and prioritization and helps inform our future Hellbender conservation efforts.

Indigomagazine Our first step is optimizing the value of current conservation lands, both public and private, for Hellbender populations, which is the “low-hanging fruit� for effective conservation. This summer, we are visiting several state and private conservation properties in the Little Tennessee drainage to survey for Hellbenders but also to measure aspects of rock availability and water quality.

We are not expecting to find stable Hellbender populations but rather to start to understand what might be limiting the populations at those sites. In some cases, there may be feasible measures, such as installing artificial rock habitat or planting trees that can help improve the stream site. In others, restoring the stream may require cooperation with neighbors who live upstream. That will require convincing local farmers and homeowners that creating and managing stream buffers is worth it.

Photo: Pete Oxford

All of this brings us full circle back to Hellbenders as a conservation flagship.

The development of a successful conservation partnership requires that each participant feel a personal stake in the game, whether that be driven by conservation concern, economic interests or emotional attachment. Even if it comes with a long-term benefit, it is asking a lot for a private landowner to trust you to work on their land. While there is no guarantee of success, promoting a flagship species can go a long way to winning friends to the conservation cause. Even if that flagship is wrinkly and slimy.

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Photo: Kiley Briggs

by Heidi Hall

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Indigomagazine I am walking along a cold-looking stream in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont in early May. It has been really, really cold for the last few days, and this is the first day since I have been here that the sun is shining and we have a good chance of spotting a Wood Turtle. I am with Orianne Field Technician, Kiley Briggs, Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Chris Jenkins, and a good friend, Lilian Shen. They are walking ahead of me but closer to the stream than I am. At this point, I am looking for a Wood Turtle, but mostly I am taking in my surroundings. It is finally warmish and sunny in Vermont, and I am soaking it in. This isn’t an official survey yet so I can look at the horizon and take in the distant mountains without feeling too guilty.

This is the reconnaissance phase of our Wood Turtle work in which we make certain the survey sites we have selected are practical and have a likelihood of Wood Turtle presence. I have seen Wood Turtles before—in fact, I have one in my office—but I have never found one in the wild. I am wondering why that is as I amble along.

I grew up in central Pennsylvania where there are Wood Turtles, and I spent a lot of time outside with my dad pointing out various wildlife and plant species—including numerous turtle species as we fished. Why had I never seen a Wood Turtle before? Lilian and I are chatting while we walk… “What is that plant?” “Do they mow this?” “Did the stream freeze solid in the winter?” I bent down to examine what looked like the cut end of a small sapling—they must mow it… “Oh! There is a Wood Turtle!” Tucked away under last year’s forbs, I can just detect a dirty brown shell, a bit of orange and one big eyeball!

This, my friends, is why I have never seen a Wood Turtle before. Had I not gotten so close to the ground to examine the vegetation, I would have walked right by it. These are very cryptic little animals. I called over to Kiley and Chris that I had found my first-ever Wood Turtle in the wild, and I was ecstatic! It was an adult male that was very bright orange on the neck and legs and who seemed just as curious about me as I was about him. The look he gave me solidified it—I really like Wood Turtles.

We have been working in the Northeast since 2009 when we started our efforts to conserve Timber Rattlesnakes in Vermont. But in 2016 we made it official by creating our Great Northern Forests Initiative under which we work to conserve habitat within the Northeast Kingdom, freshwater turtles, and vernal pools and vernal pool breeding amphibians within the Transitional Conifer-Hardwood ecosystem. We began our conservation efforts under this initiative in the spring by conducting surveys of the freshwater turtle conservation priority flagship species: the Wood Turtle.

Wood Turtles have what we refer to as a “very slow” life history. These animals live a long time—over 40 years in the wild. However, it takes them a long time to reach sexual maturity. Once they reach sexual maturity, females may only produce a single clutch per year. Nests are highly susceptible to predation, and hatchling mortality rates are high. When all of these facts are paired together and combined with other threats that limit the lifespan of Wood Turtles, it is the perfect storm that results in low population recruitment rates, or the number of young turtles that reach sexual maturity and become part of the breeding population. This presents a significant challenge to maintaining sustainable populations. In some declining populations, removing one adult female Wood Turtle from the wild may result in a dramatic population decline.

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Indigomagazine First a Little Background You may have noticed that The Orianne Society has flagship species for each of its initiatives—Eastern Indigo Snakes for the Longleaf Savannas Initiative, Eastern Hellbenders for the Appalachian Highlands Initiative, Timber Rattlesnakes for the Global Viper Conservation Initiative and, of course, Wood Turtles for the Great Northern Forests Initiative.

By definition, a flagship species is one that is “selected to act as an ambassador, icon or symbol for a defined habitat, issue, campaign or environmental cause.”

The point of a flagship is to help bring awareness to the cause it is associated with; to help leverage support for, in this case, conservation issues. It also can act as an “umbrella,” meaning conservation efforts for that umbrella species actually benefits a whole suite of species that inhabit the same area.

So what is it that makes the Wood Turtle the perfect flagship species for the Great Northern Forests?

Before diving into what makes it a good flagship species, let’s get to know the Wood Turtle a little bit better. Wood Turtles occur in both the United States and Canada, occurring as far as eastern Minnesota and through the northern Appalachians in the U.S., and north into Nova Scotia, Canada.

During the months of summer and fall, you can find a Wood Turtle wandering throughout a wide range of habitats, both terrestrial and aquatic. You will find them in agricultural fields, streams, forested uplands, wetlands and visiting vernal pools. But once the weather begins to cool, Wood Turtles retreat to their streams to overwinter underwater, often taking shelter in undercut stream banks that are submerged. As winter moves to spring and water temperatures rise, Wood Turtles will come out and begin basking along stream banks, foraging and preparing for mating season. Wood Turtles mate in streams during the spring months. Females begin to move away from their streams in early

summer to nest in upland areas, seeking out well-drained and elevated areas to lay their eggs. Though it can vary between populations and individuals, female Wood Turtles will on average lay between seven to 11 eggs. The incubation period for Wood Turtle eggs ranges considerably and depends on temperature. Nests are highly susceptible to predation.

Wood Turtles suffer from the same myriad of threats as many other imperiled species, including habitat loss and fragmentation. Because Wood Turtles use a variety of habitats and travel great distances throughout the year, they encounter many hazards. Most places where there is a river, there is also development in the form of houses, agriculture and roads.

Traveling through human development is dangerous for Wood Turtles—mortality is increased when they must cross roads and is also common in agricultural fields that lie adjacent to Wood Turtle-inhabited streams. Many Wood Turtles are lost to mower blades as they move into upland habitats through agricultural areas.

Although there is natural mortality from predation, development also brings subsidized predation. Subsidized

Wood Turtles are omnivores that feed on a vast array of plant and animal matter. You will find them eating, among other things, berries, fish, grass, snails and… earthworms. I am highlighting this last diet item because of some interesting anecdotal evidence of a feeding behavior we will refer to as the “Wood Turtle Stomp.”

Wood Turtles have been observed alternately stomping their feet to create vibrations in the ground. For some reason I am not aware of, earthworms will come to the surface if they feel vibration. The Wood Turtle at some point has learned this and will stomp on the ground for its next meal. There does not appear to be any scientific evidence to back up the Wood Turtle Stomp, and it could very well be a myth, but it is fun to imagine.

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Indigomagazine Personality

Keep in mind the definition of a flagship species—one that is “selected to act as an ambassador, icon or symbol for a defined habitat, issue, campaign or environmental cause.” That being said, this is why we think the Wood Turtle is a great flagship species for the Great Northern Forests:

Anyone that has spent time with a Wood Turtle will tell you it has some charisma.

We don’t usually anthropomorphize the species we work to conserve, but Wood Turtles seem to have great personality. By all accounts, they are intelligent animals.

A research project conducted on Wood Turtle intelligence showed that they have the same learning capacity as rats and can easily navigate mazes. I personally can attest to them being adept at climbing and escaping an enclosure—I have found our education outreach Wood Turtle, Woody, out of his enclosure staring at me from across the room as if coming in to nonchalantly say, “Good morning.”

It is perhaps this personality that has landed it in decline, partially from overcollection for the pet trade. At one point, a Wood Turtle could sell for over $300.

But it is the personality of this animal that makes it a good flagship. It is nearly impossible to encounter a Wood Turtle and not want to assist in conservation efforts that will keep it around in perpetuity.

A Great Face

Secretive and Hardy

So What Makes The Wood Turtle a Good Flagship Species?

Wood Turtles are beautiful and can even be considered cute. I know that is very subjective, but we aren’t alone in our opinion. Wood Turtles don’t get very big, with adults ranging from six to 10 inches in length. Their scientific name, Glyptemys insculpta, refers to the shell—insculpta means “engraved”—and Wood Turtle shells look like they have been intricately carved into a stunning design. The head and limbs range from bright orange to yellow in color which contrasts beautifully with the glossy brown carapace. When a Wood Turtle stretches its head long out of its shell, it is stunning to observe, making it a sight that draws attention—attention to the conservation needs of its species and the ecosystem it needs to persist.

A little mystery can draw attention, and the Wood Turtle is very secretive and

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mysterious. Unlike other aquatic turtles, you will rarely find a Wood Turtle basking out in the open. You are more likely to have to scour through fallen trees, tall grasses or brambles to find one. If populations were higher and you lived within the range of Wood Turtles, you would probably walk right by one without even knowing it.

Additionally, Wood Turtles are pretty hardy. The places where Wood Turtles occur are cold—sometimes very, very cold.

But Wood Turtles seem to thrive in these temperatures, spending entire winters in icy waters. The Wood Turtle is cryptic, is rarely seen and is able to withstand harsh circumstances.

Icon for Wild Places

When people think of icons for wild places, they think of animals like grizzly bears or wolves. But the Wood Turtle can live in some very beautiful and wild places. Picture remote forest streams running with cool, clear water. Adjacent floodplain areas are intact and are either forested or natural fields and meadows.

The air is fresh, and the only sound is running water and forest dwellers. Away from civilization, some of the last wild places in North America hold populations

Photo: Kiley Briggs

predators are predators that normally occur but occur in higher densities due to human-altered resource availability.

Raccoons are an excellent example of a subsidized predator, as they thrive in areas that are developed. Raccoons prey on Wood Turtle nests and young turtles, increasing hatchling mortality.

Lastly, Wood Turtles, because they are an attractive and charismatic species, were heavily collected for the pet trade.

Indigomagazine

“It is nearly impossible to encounter a Wood Turtle and not want to assist in conservation

efforts that will keep it around in perpetuity.”

Photo: Pete Oxford

Wood Turtles use up to 2,000 feet—that’s almost seven football fields—on either side of a stream for their home range.

of Wood Turtles, including the Northeast Kingdom of New England. Some species, such as the snapping turtle, will do fine amongst development. Not the Wood Turtle—it does not do well around people and development but still has strongholds in some of the wilder and more remote places within its range.

Habitat Needs Restoring and protecting habitat for Wood Turtles has an umbrella effect,

meaning these restoration efforts and protected lands benefit numerous other species. Wood Turtles spend as much time in a stream as they do out of one. In fact, they have been documented using over 2,000 feet on either side of a waterway to meet their habitat needs—that is almost seven football fields on either side of the stream! In general, Wood Turtles require streams in which to overwinter, upland areas for nesting, and everything in between for foraging and basking—and all of these habitats need to be connected and intact. Because the Wood Turtle

requires suitable habitat in both riparian and upland areas, working to restore habitat for Wood Turtles benefits other species, both terrestrial and aquatic.

In Need of Conservation Efforts The Wood Turtle is one of the rarest turtles in North America. In 1996 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the Wood Turtle

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Indigomagazine (then known as Clemmys insculpta) as being Vulnerable to extinction. In 2011 the IUCN upgraded this listing (now known as Glyptemys insculpta) to Endangered based on further declines in populations.

Within Canada the Wood Turtle is listed as Threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife, and several provinces have designated listings, such as Ontario which lists the species as Rare and Nova Scotia which considers it Vulnerable.

Within the United States, several states have designated listings for Wood Turtles, including it being a Species of Special Concern in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York and West Virginia; Threatened in Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia and Wisconsin; and Endangered in Iowa. Lastly, the Wood Turtle was recently proposed for listing under the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Act. Make no mistake—Wood Turtles are very much in need of conserving.

So it’s a Flagship...

Now What?

The Wood Turtle is getting some attention. There are regional efforts that cover the majority of the states where Wood Turtles occur that are working towards preventing it from becoming endangered or even extinct. These efforts include a standardized monitoring protocol, coordinated data acquisition so that researchers are all collecting the same types of data, and coordinated conservation actions.

The Wood Turtle is the face of our Great Northern Forests Initiative, and we think it is an attractive one that embodies the landscapes we are working to conserve in the Northeast. But being the flagship

isn’t enough. Here is a summary of just a few things The Orianne Society is doing to conserve the Wood Turtle:

Surveys

In May of 2016, we took steps to launch our Great Northern Forests Initiative by beginning survey efforts of Wood Turtles in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

These surveys will allow us to assess the status of Wood Turtles in key areas within this region and beyond—we are currently selecting additional priority landscapes to survey beyond the Northeast Kingdom.

To select our survey sites, we used an existing habitat model of a group of watersheds that showed areas that seemed to have suitable habitat for Wood Turtles.

We then sat down with regional research and conservation groups familiar with both Wood Turtles and habitat within the Northeast Kingdom and went over each of these areas to determine if the sites the model selected had a probability of having Wood Turtles. Some sites were ruled out based on factors such as realistic water flow. The remaining sites are where we are currently surveying.

Surveys, when done correctly, are an important component of conservation.

They can provide us with a great deal of information, such as presence or absence of a species, can help notify us of population declines or general population health, and can demonstrate whether or not management plans are having a favorable effect on a target species.

I will add that surveys for Wood Turtles are fun. They are cryptic little animals, so finding one basking under a pile of vegetation in a filtered patch of sunlight is like winning a grand prize.

Additionally, they live in some really beautiful places. Spending time walking along streams in some of the wildest country in the Northeast looking for a stunning and mysterious animal is not a hardship. Knowing that what you are

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doing will contribute to the conservation of this animal is the icing on the cake.

Genetic Analysis

We are collecting tissue from each Wood Turtle found during our surveys to analyze genetic data to assess the genetic diversity within populations and connectivity among populations. Genetic diversity is extremely important—it helps maintain the health of a population, making it more likely to be able to survive through things like disease and habitat changes. The genetics component to this project is being conducted as part of a broader, range-wide genetic analysis.

Environmental DNA

Some of you may be familiar with our work using environmental DNA (eDNA) as a means to survey for Eastern Hellbenders under our Appalachian Highlands Initiative. Essentially, you can survey for Hellbenders without actually seeing the animal but rather by detecting Hellbender eDNA in water samples collected in streams. This has been incredibly successful in our Hellbender work, and we are now going to test whether using this detection method will also be successful with Wood Turtle eDNA. Using eDNA to survey will be much faster than visual surveys and will allow us to assess the status of Wood Turtles across their range at a more rapid rate.

Habitat Conservation

As I mentioned above, looking for Wood Turtles is awesome—unfortunately, it can also be a bit depressing. Wood Turtles need a vast array of habitat in both riparian areas and upland areas. Now think about that for a second. How often do you really get to see that much intact habitat for wildlife—places where animals never have to worry about crossing roads or pollution or sediment loading in a water

Photo: Kiley Briggs

Photo: Kiley Briggs

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“For conservation of a species to be successful, you must educate the public on the species, the importance of the species, what needs to change for them to persist and what they can do to help.” way? Not very often. So while it is amazing to find a Wood Turtle, assessing Wood Turtle habitat—assessing habitat for many wildlife species—is not so amazing. And as human populations continue to grow, this is only going to get worse unless we protect key areas for this species.

Along with conducting surveys, we are identifying key habitat priority areas for Wood Turtles. These are areas we will work to protect and restore. Of course we can’t purchase every acre available for Wood Turtle habitat. So, much like we have done for the Eastern Indigo Snake, we will work with private landowners to restore and create habitat on their properties, in addition to some land acquisition. Our goal is to use this strategy to create a connective Wood Turtle preserve system.

Education

For conservation of a species to be successful, you must educate the public on the species, the importance of the species, what needs to change for them to persist and what they can do to help. In the case of Wood Turtles, this last part is somewhat simple. Number One: do not, under any circumstances, take one home as a pet. Number Two: and this one is particularly true for farmers, raising your mower blade by just a few inches during

harvest can result in much lower mortality to Wood Turtles.

We are working to develop an educational program which we will present multiple times per year in our survey areas. The program will focus not only on the two points mentioned previously, but also on how citizens can implement conservation activities on their own properties to promote Wood Turtle habitat, which will give citizens a sense of ownership and pride in having Wood Turtles in their backyards.

Wrapping It Up So what have we learned? If someone asked me to explain why I think Wood Turtles are a good flagship species for the Great Northern Forests, I would summarize it like this: “The Wood Turtle is a great flagship species because it is a cute, charismatic, secretive little turtle that lives in extreme environments representing some of the last wild places in North America and by which implementing conservation activities for this species in turn benefits numerous other wildlife.”

Oh, and can I mention again that it is really, really cute?

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Photo: Kiley Briggs

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Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

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Indigomagazine

by Dr. Lauren J. Livo Before retiring, Dr. Lauren Livo worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado following several years conducting research on Boreal Toads in cooperation with the Colorado Division of Wildlife (now Colorado Parks and Wildlife).

The Boreal Toad (Anaxyrus boreas boreas) is one of a handful of amphibian species that survives at Colorado’s high elevations. With a distribution in the Southern Rocky Mountains that straddles the Continental Divide through southeastern Wyoming, central Colorado and into northern New Mexico, Boreal Toads are mountain specialists, occupying sites usually above 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) where aspen and conifers predominate. Here Boreal Toads breed in beaver ponds, marshes, quiet pools in streams and even shallow margins of reservoirs.

Boreal Toads are now considered Endangered by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and by the New Mexico Department of Fish and Game. However, it is difficult to overstate how common Boreal Toads once were in Colorado. Most mountain ranges in Colorado have historic records of Boreal Toads. Exceptions seem to be among the southeastern ranges, including the Rampart Range, Wet Mountains and Sangre de Cristo ranges as well as the Uncompaghre Plateau in west-central Colorado.

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Indigomagazine Boreal Toads were among the first amphibians collected during survey work in the 1800s, being reported from the Sawatch and Mosquito Ranges.

When early observers commented on Boreal Toads, they often regarded the amphibians as abundant. Max Ellis and Junius Henderson compiled a checklist of Colorado’s amphibians and reptiles in 1913 and 1915. They reported, “This species was very abundant... At night the adults were found in numbers under the street lights and in the grass near irrigation ditches.” In the Elk Mountains, W. Leslie Burger, Jr., and Arthur Bragg wrote, “The adults of [the Boreal Toad] were frequently found in moist meadows and thickets up to an altitude of about 10,000 feet. They were especially numerous around bodies of water (beaver ponds, glacial kettle ponds and streams) both in the shallow water and in the vegetation in the low areas on the shore.” The University of Colorado (UC) Museum houses hundreds of specimens from dozens of sites in the Front Range, collected over the years by professors and students at the university.

About the Boreal Toads on Grand Mesa, Charles Burt wrote, “this toad was very abundant in the vicinity of a small pond...

Both young and adults were numerous in the grass... some individuals were under rocks, logs and boards, and one adult was found floating among reeds in the open water near the middle of the pond.”

Such observations are likely the tip of the iceberg. As James Campbell lamented in his Ph.D. dissertation, Boreal Toads were only abundant in the mountains in “moist meadows, dense willow thickets or in other places where the casual visitor seldom wanders.” Further, many people interested in studying amphibians and reptiles prefer to work at lower elevation sites where the herpetological diversity is much greater. When I began my studies of Colorado’s amphibians and reptiles, I myself tended to select field trips to

the Plains in eastern Colorado or the Canyonlands of western Colorado rather than concentrate very much on the few species living in the mountains. Even so, when I looked, I readily encountered toads at sites along the Front Range and in Grand Mesa in the 1970s.

The Great Decline Alarms about amphibian declines prior to the 1970s tended to be local, often associated with habitat disappearance as towns and roadways expanded, or over-collection appeared to threaten frog populations used in laboratories.

When amphibian declines in the western United States were noted, predation and competition by the introduced American Bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbeianus) frequently were blamed.

In the 1970s, Cindy Carey was studying Boreal Toads in the West Elk Mountains of west-central Colorado; beginning in 1974 she occasionally found sick or dead toads. Most chilling, though, was how a site could have breeding adults one year and complete absence of toads the following spring. At the same time, two nearby populations of Northern Leopard Frogs vanished.

In the 1980s, low elevation amphibian populations in Colorado had to contend with a number of stressors that were difficult to ignore, including habitat loss through urbanization and development, widespread pesticide applications, introduced predators such as the American Bullfrog and so on. In the mountains, though, these potential stressors were either at a much-reduced level or absent entirely. Yet it appeared that amphibians were being lost from places such as wilderness areas and national parks nonetheless.

In addition to the Boreal Toad, four other amphibian species occupy high

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elevation sites in Colorado: the Northern Leopard Frog, the Wood Frog, the Boreal Chorus Frog and the Barred Tiger Salamander. Of these, the Boreal Toad and Wood Frog are restricted to elevations mostly above 8,000 ft.; the remaining three species occupy a much broader elevation range and are found at both low and high elevations. With its restricted range in north-central Colorado, the Wood Frog had long been a species of concern. Northern Leopard Frogs were documented as declining in lowland areas where they occurred with the introduced American Bullfrogs. P. Stephen Corn and his colleagues had observed the local extinction of Northern Leopard Frogs in the Red Feathers Lakes area in the mountains, possibly due to drought.

In the 1980s, montane populations of Barred Tiger Salamanders in the West Elk Mountains were thought to have declined.

As a consequence, there was reason for concern for at least four of the five species that occurred in the mountains.

By the mid-1980s, biologists at state and federal agencies, as well as those at universities, began to conduct surveys focused on montane amphibians. Surveys for amphibians in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming by Corn and his colleagues looked at both the presence and absence of amphibians, but they also examined whether acid precipitation might have played a role in amphibian declines. They found little evidence of acid precipitation affecting amphibian populations.

After three years of field and lab work, they had starkly ominous results: their evidence indicated that Boreal Toads and Northern Leopard Frogs in particular were absent from many of the areas where they once had been abundant. Corn and his co-authors wrote, “When common species become rare in a short time and without a readily apparent mechanism, it is alarming.” The amphibian declines

Indigomagazine in the mountains remained a mystery. In 1989, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) was considering listing the Rocky Mountain population of the Boreal Toad as Threatened or Endangered.

By 1993 the Boreal Toad was listed at the state level as Endangered.

A Little about Taxonomy

Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

Dots show the distribution of Boreal Toads in Colorado. The red line represents the Continental Divide. Selected counties and mountain ranges are labeled.

A long way to grow: a yearling sits on the head of an adult Boreal Toad.

At present, the Boreal Toad is considered one of two subspecies of the Western Toad (Anaxyrus boreas), a species originally described by Baird and Girard in 1852. As currently defined, the subspecies named the Boreal Toad (A. b. boreas) ranges from Colorado and northern New Mexico in the East, to Alaska and northern California in the West. The second subspecies, the Southern California Toad (A. b. halophilus), ranges through most of California and south to Baja California. The boreas species group also includes three related species, the Yosemite Toad (A. canorus), Black Toad (A. exsul) and Amargosa Toad (A. nelsoni), each with limited ranges in California or Nevada. Over this vast range, toads in the boreas species group make their lives at a variety of elevations—from sea level to 12,284 ft. (0-3744 m.)—and in a wide range of habitats from deserts to mountains.

Recent genetic studies indicate a more complicated picture. When mitochondrial DNA was examined by Anna Goebel and her colleagues, the results identified three major groups, or clades, that represented evolutionary lineages. Most of the toads in the boreas complex belonged to what they termed the Northwest Clade, which included populations from northwestern Wyoming to Alaska in the North, and into southern California in the Southwest. The Southwest Clade consisted of toads in southern California and Baja California.

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Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

Indigomagazine

Caught in a snowstorm: This pair of Boreal Toads entered amplexus as a snowstorm began.

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Indigomagazine The Eastern Clade included all the toads in southeastern Wyoming and Colorado, as well as toads in Utah, southeastern Idaho and northeastern Nevada. There were minor groupings, as well.

Boundaries of these clades did not map onto the boundaries of the species and subspecies as currently defined, indicating that a rearrangement of the taxonomy of the boreas species group may be warranted. If borne out by further genetic and morphological studies, the results of this work would likely include revising our understanding of boundaries between species as well as descriptions of additional species.

For now, though, the USFWS treats Boreal Toads in Colorado, southeastern Wyoming and northern New Mexico as at most a “distinct population segment,” the Southern Rocky Mountain Population. These toads are disjunct, or geographically separated, from other A. boreas populations to the north and west by more than 100 miles of inhospitable terrain. If the Boreal Toads in southern Wyoming, Colorado and northern New Mexico were determined to be a separate species rather than merely a subspecies, there would be greater priority for listing at the federal level.

Natural History In comparison to the whole species, Colorado’s Boreal Toads are more specialized, occupying sites usually above 8,000 ft. (2,438 m.) in the mountains, where aspen and conifers predominate and winter snows can accumulate to depths measured in yards. Here, when open water appears in the breeding pools and sufficient snow has melted so that the toads can leave their underground hibernacula, Boreal Toads gather to breed.

Beginning about mid-May, males arrive at the breeding sites, sometimes crossing

snowbanks on their way, and linger at the breeding site for three or more weeks. In contrast, females tend to show up later, breed and immediately depart. Especially early in the breeding season, both air temperature and water temperature can be near freezing, but rather than breed in the relative warmth of the day, most reproductive activity takes place after sunset. In a population with numerous ponds and pools along a drainage, toads can breed a month earlier at the low elevation sites compared with the toads occupying higher elevation sites.

For anyone accustomed to the croaks, trills and warbles produced by males of most breeding frogs and toads, a breeding aggregation of Boreal Toads can be a weirdly silent affair. Males seldom produce any sounds as they sit around the edge of a pool, waiting for females to arrive.

Sometimes one male mistakenly grapples another; then the male that has been grabbed makes an indignant release call, sounding for all the world like the peeping of a tiny chick.

When a male does encounter a female, he clutches her under her front arms with his front arms, a mating embrace termed amplexus. The pair usually remains together for hours, sometimes sitting quietly, other times swimming short distances. The male Boreal Toad fertilizes the eggs as the female releases them, the pair often wrapping the long strands of eggs around vegetation so that the egg mass looks like a skein of yarn after a cat has played with it. After the eggs have been deposited, the male and female toad go their separate ways, delivering no further care to their progeny.

So life, for a Boreal Toad, begins as a small black sphere, suspended in a clear gelatinous tube that contains thousands of similar fertilized eggs. With clutch sizes ranging from around 3,000 to over 10,000 eggs, under the best of circumstances any individual Boreal Toad egg has a

vanishingly small chance of surviving to adulthood and contributing eggs or sperm for a succeeding generation.

Depending on temperatures, it may take five days to more than a week to develop and hatch from the egg strand, a time when the greatest hazard might be where its parents chose to place it. In pools and ponds topped off by snowmelt, mating toads tend to select very shallow water to deposit eggs. However, as the snowmelt ceases and days warm, for some egg masses, disaster takes the form of being deposited at a site that dries up either before the eggs hatch or before the tadpoles can escape to deeper water. This is also a time when a variety of insects, leeches and other invertebrates might consider the toad embryo a tasty meal.

Other hazards, such as the attack of an egg strand by fungus or by pollution running into a breeding pool from a road, might kill the entire egg mass. Most eggs, however, succeed in hatching from the strand, becoming small, grain-sized tadpoles.

The tadpole stage, too, is filled with hungry predators. In some ponds, the life cycle of the Predaceous Diving Beetle seems designed to provide the beetle larvae with opportunities to feast on Boreal Toad tadpoles. Where levels of Predaceous Diving Beetle larvae are high, few Boreal Toad tadpoles may survive to metamorphosis. In some ponds, gartersnakes take their toll on the tadpoles.

Even ducks, such as mallards, may wipe out nearly all the Boreal Toad tadpoles in a pond.

In a thriving population, with favorable habitat and numerous clutches, black, wiggling tadpoles may crowd a shallow, sunlit shoreline, seeking whatever food they can scrape with their mouthparts from the substrate in the warmest water available. At this stage, the tadpole’s job is to consume as much as it can, as quickly as it can, and metabolize that food into

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Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

Close-up of eggs in a Boreal Toad egg strand.

Most Boreal Toad tadpoles are jet black like this indiviual, but at some sites the tadpoles are brown.

Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

as large a body as it can manage. Several factors, including food levels, tadpole density, site permanence, the severity of predation pressure and temperature, potentially interact in complex ways to influence how large a tadpole can grow.

As the sun sets, tadpole schools may flow through the channels of an old beaver pond to deeper water where the tadpoles spend the night quietly resting on the substrate.

At lower elevations within their range, Boreal Toads can breed earlier, and their eggs and tadpoles develop faster compared to higher breeding sites. Time from egg deposition to successful metamorphosis at several sites that I studied varied from 64 to 92 days. In higher sites and sites with colder water, tadpoles may not be able to complete development and metamorphose before the onset of winter. Tadpoles that don’t make it out of the water by season’s end don’t survive the winter.

Metamorphosis is another time of danger for a toad. Spotted sandpipers and American robins sometimes stroll along the edge of a breeding pond, eating another metamorph with nearly every step.

Sometimes hundreds or thousands of tadpoles metamorphose at the same time.

The tiny toadlets, some still absorbing the stubs of their tails, often form what are call Post-metamorphic Aggregations (PMA).

Few if any PMAs form on overcast or rainy days. But on a sunlit day, particularly if there is a breeze, these piles of toadlets are accomplishing at least two things: they are maximizing warmth and minimizing water loss.

And size matters in a couple of ways.

The larger the pile, the warmer the pile of toadlets can be compared to toadlets in smaller piles or individual toadlets. Also, at a size at metamorphosis of about 0.6 inches (15 millimeters) from snout to vent, toadlets have the greatest surface area to volume ratio that they will experience, making water loss a real hazard. By being

Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

Indigomagazine

Female Boreal Toads coming to a breeding site sometimes are killed when numerous males struggle to grasp her.

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Indigomagazine in contact with other moist little bodies, they can hold on to more of their bodies’ precious moisture.

Eventually, the toadlets disperse to sites where they will overwinter. At ponds with beaver dams, toadlets sometimes overwinter in the interstitial spaces within the dam where the water flowing through the dam can maintain a sufficiently high temperature and high humidity to allow the toadlets to survive. At sites with lush shoreline vegetation, toadlets apparently find suitable overwintering sites, because they sometimes are observed in these areas the spring after they metamorphose.

Other toadlets disperse well away from the breeding site, often following trickles of moisture.

What happens next for the tiny toadlets isn’t well known. After the

Boreal Toads. The smallest mature males are about 2 in. (55 mm.) snout-vent length, and they probably require four or five years to reach this size. The larger females show up for the first time at breeding ponds when they are about 2.75 in. (70 mm.) long, a size they probably reach after six or seven years. Boreal Toads that survive can survive a rather long time. Brad Lambert and his colleagues tagged one female as an adult in 1998; she was recaptured in 2015, giving her an estimated age of over 20 years.

Outside of the breeding season, Boreal Toads can wander great distances.

Individuals frequently move a mile or more away from a breeding site. One toad from central Colorado moved between drainages, a straight-line distance of at about 5.5 miles (9.1 kilometers). While an

and Subalpine Fir where they spent the winter in underground chambers near the stream banks.

Managing a Declining Species CPW has responsibility not only for designating species as Threatened or Endangered, but also for managing these and the rest of the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish in the state. It also has the lead role in an interagency recovery team for conservation, management and research activities regarding the Boreal Toad.

In the first years after the Boreal Toad Recovery Team formed, the fact that Boreal Toads had declined was clear,

“What happens next for the tiny toadlets isn’t well known.

After the toadlets disperse, they are infrequently seen until they have matured and return to the breeding pond as adults. ” toadlets disperse, they are infrequently seen until they have matured and return to the breeding pond as adults.

Sometimes juveniles are encountered in lush vegetation near a breeding site, but mostly where they go and what they do is a mystery. Many frogs and toads have a life cycle in which eggs deposited one year develop into breeding adults by the following year—a frenzied pace for animals that live fast and die young. Life in Colorado’s mountains is tough though, and for Boreal Toads, development from egg to adult requires a much longer time.

The lower environmental temperatures and short activity season impose constraints on the growth and activity of

individual initially tagged at one breeding site may show up in a subsequent year at a different breeding site miles away, for the most part, male toads return spring after spring to the same pond. In contrast to the males, although they usually return to the same breeding area, female toads skip one or more years between breeding episodes.

Late in the summer, adults move again, this time to hibernacula. In one mountain valley, radio-tagged individuals at the lowest breeding site sought out ground squirrel burrows where they spent the winter underground on a snow-covered slope, a few degrees above freezing. Toads higher up in the valley congregated along a stream in a stand of Engelmann Spruce

but why the toads had declined was still a mystery. At sites where toads were encountered, the toads looked and acted perfectly healthy, eggs were hatching, tadpoles were swimming, and there wasn’t any clue as to why toads persisted in good numbers in one mountain drainage but were absent or rare in others where they had been abundant. At the time the recovery team was formed, there were three counties in Colorado, each with a series of thriving Boreal Toad populations in at least one drainage: Larimer, Clear Creek and Chaffee counties.

Shortly after the Boreal Toad was listed as Endangered in the state, survey and monitoring procedures began. One

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Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

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A captive Boreal Toad at the Native Aquatic Species Restoration Facility on a basking platform.

of the top priorities was to find additional breeding populations, and in cooperation with agencies including the United States Forest Service, Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, crews were organized to survey wetlands and other potential Boreal Toad habitat. At this time, the recovery team also initiated monitoring of known populations. By visiting a site during the breeding season and counting

the number of toads and egg masses seen, and later in the season checking the site to see if tadpoles had successfully metamorphosed, over time it was possible to get a crude idea of how various populations were doing. Because disease existed as a possibility for the Boreal Toad population declines, all people working at Boreal Toad sites had to clean and decontaminate equipment between sites.

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Research on Boreal Toad biology and ecology was already underway with projects led by P. Stephen Corn of the United States Geological Service in Rocky Mountain National Park. Using techniques such as tagging individual toads at selected breeding sites with uniquely numbered passive integrated transponders (PIT) tags, researchers could track population trends more precisely over time. Researchers

Indigomagazine from the state’s Aquatic Research Section placed radio transmitters on adult toads and then regularly located them and mapped the Boreal Toad movements and habitat use.

Because so much of the historical Boreal Toad habitat lacked toads, the recovery team determined that the only way to restore toads to the point where they could be considered recovered was through translocations where eggs, tadpoles or metamorphs would be released at sites formerly, but not currently, occupied by Boreal Toads. Translocation efforts in the Rocky Mountain National Park and in western Boulder County took place in the early years of the recovery team.

A search was still on for the cause of the declines.

The Smoking Gun

Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

A new disease, chytridiomycosis, was described from frogs in Australia and Central America in 1998. Dead and dying frogs were collected during mass mortality events and examined. In their skin was an unknown fungus. The fungus could be transmitted to healthy frogs and cause

them to die. Tadpoles could be infected, but they didn’t experience mortality, as the fungus was restricted to the mouthparts.

In 1999, the fungus had a name: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd. The population being studied in Clear Creek County began to crash in 1999.

Dead and dying animals submitted for examination tested positive for Bd. In 1998, researchers at Rocky Mountain National Park had frozen the bodies of some Boreal Toads that were found dead at a time when the population was crashing. When submitted for histologic examination on a later date, Bd was found in the skin of these and additional toads from the population.

In short order, it became clear that current mass mortality events in Boreal Toad populations could be caused by an outbreak of chytridiomycosis. Whether Bd was responsible for the initial extinctions of Boreal Toad populations may never be known for sure, but it seems more likely than any other explanation to date.

The research direction of the Boreal Toad Recovery Team shifted to account for this new factor, and development of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test got underway. A swab stroked across the skin of a toad was sufficient that if a toad had

A female Boreal Toad receiving an injection of hormones to induce egg deposition.

a Bd infection, the PCR test could detect the chytrid DNA. People conducting the surveying and monitoring work now had an additional task: collect swabs from the resident toads at breeding sites to test for Bd. Studies in Cindy Carey’s laboratory at UC showed that environmental conditions strongly affected how long toads could survive after being exposed to Bd. The amphibian chytrid thrives at cool temperatures, likely one of the reasons amphibians in the mountains appear so strongly affected by this pathogen.

Since the original description of chytridiomycosis and the fungus that causes it, Bd has been found around the world. High elevation amphibians seem to suffer the most, although there is a great deal of variation in susceptibility among species.

Learning to Manage Boreal Toads in a World with Bd Bd was detected in Boreal Toads for the first time in 2014 at three sites in Chaffee County, the last remaining area in Colorado that supported large Boreal Toad populations. Brad Lambert, a zoologist with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, told me that numbers at those breeding sites had declined in 2015, an effect, he believes, of Bd. His swabs from toads in the 2015 season documented Bd at three additional sites, further imperiling the remaining Boreal Toads.

It is possible that Boreal Toads themselves spread Bd to Chaffee County.

In the adjacent county, the Cow Creek site—known to be Bd-positive—is only about 4.3 mi. (7 km.) straight-line distance from a breeding site in Chaffee. The presence of the Continental Divide was thought to reduce the possibility of direct

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Indigomagazine Alamosa, CO, its primary purpose was to raise threatened and endangered native fish. From the first day, it also housed Boreal Toads. Over time, small samples of eggs from across the geographic range in Colorado were brought to NASRF and reared to metamorphosis. At present, NASRF houses nearly 500 adult and 270 juvenile toads.

outside can’t get it.

Translocation remains a key tool in the effort to restore Boreal Toads. Having a captive breeding population reduces or eliminates the need to take eggs or tadpoles from existing populations. Three translocation efforts are on-going, with two more planned to begin in 2016.

For the past several years, Mary Kay

responsibility to oversee ongoing Boreal Toad work for CPW. Of the spread of Bd in Chaffee County toads, Crockett says, “We know of quite a number of things that can be vectors but don’t know which ones are actually functioning as vectors. It could focus our efforts if we knew how Bd was being carried around.” For now, continued cleaning and decontamination of boots and equipment remains a standard practice.

When the John W. Mumma Native Aquatic Species Restoration Facility (NASRF) was dedicated in 2000 near

Crockett says, “We continue to maintain a good-sized stock of adult animals, partly to make sure we continue to represent the genetic diversity that was on the landscape.”

Staff and researchers continue to refine husbandry techniques at NASRF. Most toads had been reared in smooth troughs under artificial light. A recent innovation was the construction of an outdoor pond with adjoining hibernacula to simulate a more natural environment. The pond is constructed both so that the Boreal Toads can’t get out and so that amphibians from

Watry and her colleagues have been working on translocating Boreal Toads to a site in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Beginning in 2014, the effort was made to place as many tadpoles as possible at the site in the hope that some would survive and return to the translocation site as adults.

Boreal Toads never had a large range in New Mexico, having only been reported from three sites in a single county.

With no confirmed sightings in recent decades, Boreal Toads may have been extirpated. In an effort to re-establish

Photo: Lauren Livo/Steve Wilcox

movement between an infected site and the non-infected sites, and based on where Bd has been observed in Chaffee, Cow Creek is an unlikely source of infection.

Perhaps the Bd was spread from mud on the webbed feet of a duck or on some hiker’s boots.

Harry Crockett, the current Native Aquatic Species Coordinator, now has

48 ORIANNESOCIETY.ORG SUMMER ISSUE 2016

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“Boreal Toads may never again attain the population levels they once enjoyed in Colorado. They once disappeared without anyone noticing. We are watching now.” a population of Boreal Toads, tadpoles from the captive breeding program at NASRF were released beginning in 2007.

Two years into the translocation efforts, some samples came back positive for Bd. The decision was made to continue the translocation effort, as there have been a small number of returning adults. While there has been no observed breeding, the toads are in a large lake and wetland complex, so it is possible that there has been undocumented breeding.

The most successful translocation effort to date has been at a Bd-negative site near Cameron Pass in western Larimer County. Captive-bred tadpoles were first stocked in 2006, then eggs from geographically-close populations were brought to NASRF and “head-started.”

“Here,” Crockett says, “we’ve had returning adults—males and females— and eggs have been produced for two years straight.” The five egg clutches produced in 2014 by translocated toads at this site were lost to desiccation. Crockett says in the future they would actively intervene, even moving eggs masses if necessary, to ensure the eggs could develop to hatching.

Six egg masses were produced by the toads

in 2015, and late that summer they yielded the first naturally-recruited metamorphs.

This site demonstrates that headstarted tadpoles can successfully negotiate life as wild Boreal Toads.

Crocket states, “In the absence of an effective treatment for Bd, the opportunity we see to keep this animal on the landscape in decent numbers is through translocation. We will be starting another effort at two other sites this season.”

their skin microbes. They observed major shifts in the bacterial communities in the different life history stages. These researchers, Crocket says, “have identified a skin microbe that is commonly found on toads, that is native to this area, and that in petri dishes in the lab confers resistance to Bd.” The hope is it may someday become possible to inoculate Boreal Toads with friendly bacteria that help them resist the consequences of infection by Bd.

Finally, research to help the Boreal Toads help themselves is underway. One possibility involves the toads’ microbiome, that brew of bacteria that is resident on the skin of all of us, including toads.

Characteristics of the microbiome change through the life of an organism, so an animal with a complex life cycle can be expected to have different constituents of their microbiome over time.

CPW is providing material and logistical support for studies of amphibian skin microbial systems and the response to Bd. Researchers at UC in Valerie McKenzie’s lab sampled tadpoles, metamorphs, juveniles and adults for

It is something to see in the spring, the silent gathering of Boreal Toads at a breeding site under a sky twinkling with stars. And I hope it remains something to see for future generations. Boreal Toads may never again attain the population levels they once enjoyed in Colorado.

They once disappeared without anyone noticing. We are watching now.

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A FIELD 2

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1.Kelly O'Connor Green Treefrog

2.Hannah Makarovich Eastern Coachwhip

3.SCOTT Bolick

Eastern Fence Lizard

4.Mary C. Miguez Eastern Ratsnake

5.JOSHUA FRENCH Snapping Turtle

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6.John David Curlis Green Salamander

7.Joe Tetrault Copperhead

8.Rick Dowling

Polka Dot Treefrog

9.Blaise Byrd Gray Treefrog

10.William Moore Timber Rattlesnake

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11.Jenna Crovo

Eastern Hellbender

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UPCOMING events August 2016 8th World Congress of Herpetology August 15-21, 2016 Hangzhou, China www.wch2016hangzhou.com North Carolina Prescribed Fire Council Annual Meeting August 16-17, 2016 Plymouth, NC www.ncprescribedfirecouncil.org/annual_meeting_2016.html

September 2016 Alabama Prescribed fire annual meeting September 1, 2016 Auburn, AL www.alpfc.org/wp/homepage/ IUCN World CONSERVATION Congress September 1-10, 2016 Honolulu, HI www.iucnworldconservationcongress.org Association of Zoos & aquariums Annual Conference September 7-11, 2016 San Diego, CA www.aza.org/conferences-meetings Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies Annual Meeting September 11-15, 2016 Philadelphia, PA www.afwaannualmeeting.org/

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Conservation Easements for Forest Landowners and their Advisers September 14, 2016 Martinez, GA conted.warnell.uga.edu/courses/conse-ease-2016 South Carolina Prescribed Fire Council ANNUAL MEETING September 21-22, 2016 Edgefield, SC llewis-weis@nwtf.net GEORGIA Prescribed Fire Council ANNUAL MEETING September 29, 2016 Tifton, GA www.garxfire.com/events.htm

October 2016 COASTFEST October 1, 2016 Brunswick, GA coastalgadnr.org/CoastFest Longleaf Academy: Understory 201 October 4-6, 2016 Beaufort County, SC www.longleafalliance.org/events/longleaf-academy-understory-201 38th Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting October 7-9, 2016 Palatka, FL www.gophertortoisecouncil.org/annual-meeting/ The Wildlife Society 23rd Annual Conference October 15-18, 2016 Raleigh, NC www.twsconference.org/

Indigomagazine 70th AnnUal Conference of the Southeastern Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies October 16-19, 2016 Baton Rouge, LA www.seafwa.org/conferences/2016/

November 2016 11th Biennial Longleaf Conference November 1-4, 2016 Savannah, GA www.ncsu-feop.org/LLA/ Georgia department of natural resources Climate Conference November 2-3, 2016 Jekyll Island, GA http://coastalgadnr.org/ClimateConference Ecological Forestry Workshop November 7-10, 2016 Newton, GA www.longleafalliance.org/events/ecological-forestry-workshop

February 2017 southeastern wildlife exposition February 17-19, 2017 Charleston, SC sewe.com

March 2017 CLaxton Wildlife Festival March 11-12, 2017 Hagan, GA www.evanscountywildlifeclub.com

40th Annual Herpetology Conference March 25-27, 2017 Gainesville, FL www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herpetology-conference/home/ Association of Zoos & aquariums Mid-year meeting March 26-31, 2017 Albuquerque, NM www.aza.org/conferences-meetings

May 2017 5th Biology of the VIPERS Conference May 12-14, 2017 Chefchaouen, Morocco 5thbovconference@gmail.com

July 2017 JOINT Meeting OF Ichthyologists & HerPetologists July 12-16, 2017 Austin, TX www.asih.org/meetings 40th ANNUAL International Herpetological Society Symposium July 19-22, 2017 Rodeo, NM www.internationalherpetologicalsymposium.com/40th-annualsymposium/

= The Orianne Society will be participating

2016-2017

Want to announce an upcoming herpetology or land management event in the winter issue of Indigo Magazine?

E-mail the event information to info@oriannesociety.org by October 31, 2016 to be included.

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MEMBER levels Our members are the backbone of our organization, and we cannot accomplish all we do without your support! This year, we have expanded our membership program to offer differing levels of support to encourage members to become sustaining supporters of reptiles, amphibians and their habitats:

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Wood Turtle Membership: $100 In addition to the $35 member benefits, you’ll have the option to receive one of the following: • Printed Magazines and Reports • Limited Edition Double Dutch Press Print

In addition to the $35 member benefits, you’ll receive both of the following: • Printed Magazines and Reports • Limited Edition Double Dutch Press Print

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Don’t just plan for your future—plan for the future of reptiles, amphibians and the great places they inhabit. Whether you prefer to set up an annual donation or a deferred gift, we can work with you to determine what you want your gift to support and how it will benefit these amazing animals and landscapes. Please contact us at info@oriannesociety.org or 706-224-1359 for more information about our planned giving opportunities.

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Front Cover: Pete Oxford; Back Cover: Charles Peterson

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