Posted on 06/17/2005 8:53:55 AM PDT by GreenFreeper
Save Some Salamanders Wednesday, June 15, 2005: Lawrence, Kansas - CNAH - NEWS RELEASE The Center for North American Herpetology Lawrence, Kansas http://www.cnah.org 16 June 2005
SOS FIGHTS FOR A NEW SALAMANDER
Austin environmentalists want federal officials to put the Tonkawa Springs Salamander on endangered list
Modified from an article by Stephen Scheibal American-Statesman Staff 14 June 2005
An Austin environmental group has asked federal officials to add the Tonkawa Springs Salamander (Eurycea tonkawae) to the list of endangered species, potentially creating new development controversies along the Travis-Williamson county line.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, will run the petition and other scientific studies through several reviews before deciding whether to add the creature to the endangered species list, agency officials said.
The salamander lives in scattered caves, springs and other watery environs through a half-dozen watersheds, including Bull, Brushy, Walnut and Shoal creeks, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
It is a cousin of the Barton Springs Salamander (Eurycea sosorum), the creature unique to Austin's famous swimming hole that went on the endangered species list in 1997 after local environmentalists fought for years to put it there.
The Save Our Springs Alliance, which filed the Tonkawa Springs Salamander petition Friday, said development is creating pollution that is threatening the creature's survival. Alan Glen, a development lawyer working for Williamson County on a regional habitat conservation plan, said many developers already work with the Fish and Wildlife Service to make sure projects will not harm another cousin of both species -- the San Gabriel Springs Salamander (Eurycea naufragia).
He also said the Tonkawa Springs Salamander listing would probably affect relatively little land, compared with the roughly 350-square-mile Barton Springs watershed.
ECO-PING
Hmmm, sounds like a good place for an "unfortunate" Chlorox spill.
These make excellent large-mouth bass bait. They must be preserved...........
Salamanders are a tricky bunch as the line between a species and a subspecies is a blurry one. Many many endemic populations and zones of hybridization.
One proven method of preserving rare species is commercialization. There is a market for rare animals of every kind.
If the Endangered Species Act were designed to aid species at risk, it would have allowed for such commercialization.
But 'crats know that they can't grow their agency, or increase their salary that way.
Only because the line has been blurred deliberately. The genetic differences between the various races of humans are greater by several orders of magnitude than the differences between these supposed 'species' of salamanders. Frenchmen differ from Swedes more than these salamanders differ from each other.
This isn't science, it's politics of the lowest order.
Specially if one has to do DNA tests to tell the difference. Dumb 'ol dirt foresters like me would have just gone by their color and size. It would have never occurred to us to do DNA testing on their livers....guess we're just an unsophisticated bunch....
Cool home page btw
Well, I agree with both of you for the most part, however, neither genetic or morphological differences alone are enough to determine a species. Many plethodontids that look very similar have completely different diets, live in different habitats, breed at different times of the year, etc. etc. They are often very similar genetically as well. Unfortunately with species that easily hybridize, it often becomes more of a political matter.
"These make excellent large-mouth bass bait. They must be preserved..........."
Trout will hit them too.
I'm highly suspicious. The environuts are desperate for anything that will halt construction in the Austin area. You mean to tell me after seemingly crawling around every sewer in town they are just NOW discovering another type of salamander? Yeah, right.
In the 80s, they used the black-capped vireo and the golden-cheeked warbler. In the 90s, it was cave beetles.Then they came up with the "Barton Springs Salamander" but that only gives them talking points south of the Colorado River. So now they invent a new form of salamander for north of the river. How con-veeeeeen-ient.
Whether there is indication that such variants are in any way linked to a particular location or niche needs to be derived by experiment.
The term "sub-species" is a legal artifact, by which to hang any genetic variation onto the ESA; it is thus a deliberately blurry distinction in any number of situations. As to whether the salamanders need "protection," too often this is just a corrupt racket that accomplishes little. There are better ways to care for such things than police power, as you know.
The more you look at the behavior of plants in a particular habitat, the more you find that many of these "sub-species" are varieties, hybrids, or races, not species at all (in fact, I have found that the same is true at the species level, where I have noted hybrids of annual and perrenial plants (supposedly separate species) that themselves produced viable offspring).
I'm not saying this to discourage you, but don't we really have a plethora of plethodontids as it is?
We have a stream running past the county's closed landfill site and every spring it becomes totally polluted with the mating residue of our most virile knutes. Not one of them is named Gingrich, however!!! (how's that for politickle?)(grin)
Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the word "turbidity," don'tcha think??? Yes you do have an interesting FR home page.
They (whether FWS of CDFG I don't know) have one protected salamander up in Siskiyou County, CA that can only be distinguished by killing the animal and sequencing the DNA from its liver.
Hay! Ain't that were they sendja for the treatment of Herpies???
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