On April 10, Senate Bill 9 (Yaw-R-Lycoming) designating the Eastern Hellbender as the state amphibian and clean water ambassador (sponsor summary) was removed from the Table and placed on the House Calendar for action.

Hellbenders are North America’s largest salamander and survive where there is cold, clear, swift-running water. Growing to over two feet in length and weighing more than four pounds, they breathe oxygen from the water through their skin.

A lack of streamside trees along Commonwealth waterways allows waters to warm, polluted runoff to enter rivers and streams, and silt to build up in streambeds. As a result, habitat for hellbenders has been degraded and hellbender numbers have been decimated in Pennsylvania streams where they were plentiful as recently as 1990.

High School students with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation Student Leadership Council have been working for the last 4 years on legislation to make this designation.

Peter Petokas, Ph.D., Amphibian Conservation Biologist at Lycoming College and faculty member of the College’s Clean Water Institute has been conducting research on Eastern Hellbenders which contributed to the development of the legislation.

More information about the campaign for the Eastern Hellbender, go to CBF’s Hellbender webpage.

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Draft PA Chesapeake Bay Watershed Implementation Plan Now Available For Public Comment

[Posted: April 11, 2019]

4/15/2019