Volunteers help salamanders avoid roadway massacre (bucket brigades)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 4/5/09 | Lisa Rathke - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NEW HAVEN, Vt. – The black salamander with yellow spots sat on the roadside in the dark, ready to make a go of it.

But it was not on its own. It got help from an escort — one of 45 people who volunteered on a recent night to carry salamanders, frogs and newts across the road during their annual migration to mate.

...

From rural Vermont to urban centers like Philadelphia, human escorts, called bucket brigades in some places, help amphibians make it to their mating areas without getting squashed by cars. It's part education, part conservation, and part science.

[NormsRevenge]

[NormsRevenge]

Salamander Tunnels
Massachusetts
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/wildlifecrossings/salamand.htm

[valkyry1]

You know anything bout this?

[Rannug]

Man, they would have fun on Okinawa. I remember driving there. It was a constant crunching of snails and snail gut flying everywhere. And those things were probably six inches long. Lordy, what a mess.

[Quickgun]

Some people will find productive things to do during a depression, eh? Escorting garden varmints across the damn highway! Maybe they should come here to central Texas and do that, where they’d be sure to draw a crowd. No, wait we don’t want those people here.....

[Does so]

Salamanders—all amphibians—are in decline worldwide.

Amphibians are our most recently-evolved creature, having evolved from reptiles.

[hellbender]

I've participated in one of these rescue operations. The amphibians breed in ephemeral vernal pools which lack fish and other predators. That requires them to make their trek at night (again, to avoid predators) in early spring, when the low temperatures make the cold-blooded creatures even more sluggish. Watching them drag themselves laboriously across the pavement, you have to admire their determination. Their strategy worked for millions of years until cars came along. Thousands get slaughtered at some crossing sites.

[written by the largest amphibian on FR]

[vladimir998]

In other News:

babies are still being slaughtered - 4,000 a day - everyday, day-in and day-out right here in the same country where we escort salamanders across roads to make sure they don’t get run over by evil people in SUVs.

Kill babies, save reptiles.

As a people, we’re screwed in the head.

[hellbender]

Actually, amphibians are the most primitive land vertebrates. They still require water for reproduction. That’s what leads to the road-crossing mortality.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

thank you for your excellant post.

[hellbender]

Kill babies, save reptiles.

That's ironic for sure, but it's no justification for disrespecting and needlessly killing harmless animals of which we, as Christians, are supposed to be stewards.

[don-o]

Thank you for cutting to the chase.

[gidget7]

No kidding, the first time I saw that sign I laughed myself silly!!

[Viking2002]

I remember back in '03, when the 'Hooch flooded down here. Turtles were going nuts trying to migrate from one side of the valley to the other, and everywhere you looked, they were squashed on the roads like pumpkin pies.

*SPLAT*

[Luigi Vasellini]

you got that backwards, amphibians first appeared during the devonian about 370 million years ago ichthyostega being the first. The first reptiliomorph was westlothiana which was the first precursor to reptiles appearing approximately 350 mill yrs. ago. The first true reptiles known were approx. 300 mill years ago in the Carboniferous period.

[bolobaby]

How about this:

Libtards LOVE to talk Darwinism and survival of the fittest, but they flip out over preventing the ultimate goal of Darwinism to occur - extinction of the unfit.

[Claud]

Great screenname by the way...I’d guess you’d be the largest amphibian on FR until the Chinese Giant shows up. :)

I used marbled salamanders in my ecology research in college (harmless research—just fed ‘em and weighed ‘em). Loved those little critters. I’ve spent many an afternoon traipsing through the woods of Pennsylvania looking for two-lined and red-backed salamanders.

I’m on board with this project. Salamanders are truly wonderful creatures and among my favorites of all of God’s creation.

[Does so]

Thanks for the corrections: It was counter-intuitive as I typed it and should have looked it up.

[Charlespg]

That's ironic for sure, but it's no justification for disrespecting and needlessly killing harmless animals of which we, as Christians, are supposed to be stewards

Thank you,I don't have a problem with this salamander business ,aborition as bad as it is does not mean that we should let the rest of the world go to hell

by the way way in england they run pipes under the roads and when I lived in Glastonbury Ct it was old fire hoses run across the street from light poles to light poles