Returning to a salamander pond after twenty-one years

A species already losing breeding places

New Jersey’s 2003 conservation account says known historical breeding sites had fallen to nineteen by the mid-1970s and records the species’ state listing in 1974. It identifies water pollution, roads, development and introduced fish among the pressures. Some populations persisted by breeding in artificial pools, complicating any assumption that only untouched ponds mattered. NJDEP, Eastern Tiger Salamander, February 2003.

The old survey was repeated

In 2009, state biologists returned to a pond surveyed in 1987 and 1988. Their report describes a 500-foot drift fence with twenty-one pitfall traps. Summer catches were nineteen eastern tiger salamanders, compared with 210 and 108 in the corresponding earlier survey periods. The pond now occupied an 18.5-acre forest remnant surrounded by extensive development. NJ State Wildlife Grants report 2008–2009, Job 2C, p. 78.

These are captures under specified survey conditions, not a count of every salamander alive nearby. Weather, breeding success and detectability can change between years. The reported loss of surrounding forest makes the comparison consequential, but the figures alone cannot assign a precise fraction of the decline to one development. NJ State Wildlife Grants report 2008–2009, Job 2C, p. 78.

A search also found an overlooked population

The same report records surveys of ten previously unexamined ponds and evidence of breeding at one, with more than a hundred egg masses. Rediscovery of occupied habitat and decline at a known pond can occur in the same program. A changing inventory therefore needs to distinguish new survey coverage from actual biological recovery. NJ State Wildlife Grants report 2008–2009, Job 2C, p. 78.