Peter Ashcroft
Redwood Chapter Conservation Chair

Every day we are assailed by reports of plants and animals being driven to extinction. Often, it may seem that the problems are too far away, or too big for us to do anything about. Here is one species we can do something about.

On July 22, 2002, the US Fish and Wildlife Service emergency listed the Sonoma County Distinct Population Segment of the California Tiger Salamander as endangered. (The emergency listing will last 240 days, after which some more permanent solution will be selected.) There are currently seven known breeding sites in Sonoma County. Four have been destroyed in the last two years. Of the remaining sites, all seven are within or adjacent to the City of Santa Rosa.

The Salamander spends much of its life underground in the burrows of gophers and ground squirrels. The salamanders only emerge from their burrows to mate and lay eggs when the winter rains restore vernal pools. The newly hatched larvae can only survive if the pools stay wet long enough to allow the larvae to metamorphose into their adult form.

While the salamander faces a wide range of threats, the greatest is urban development. Bulldozers bury the adults and drain the vernal pools. Roads become impassible barriers. Development also brings pesticide and oil runoff, non-native predator species, and elimination of the other animals upon which the salamander life cycle depends.

Key points to make in your letter and testimony:

• You care about preservation of endangered ecosystems, and particularly that of the California Tiger Salamander.
• You strongly support the Fish and Wildlife Service in their efforts to protect the Tiger Salamander.
• Neither the City of Santa Rosa, nor the County can be trusted to protect the Tiger Salamander. Both have demonstrated a track record of indifference to increased Salamander protections.
• You are skeptical of claims that the salamander is widespread in Sonoma County, but you support vigorous protection of healthy populations if they are found.
• Relocation, a common tool to mitigate habitat destruction, has not been demonstrated to work. The salamander population can not afford any additional loss or fragmentation of breeding sites.
• Existing vernal pool protections (enacted to protect endangered plants) are inadequate both because they have failed to sufficiently protect vernal pools, and because the salamander life cycle requires upland areas in addition to vernal pools.