What We Know–and Don’t–About Helene’s Impacts on Reptiles and Amphibians
Millions of people across the Southeastern US are coming together to begin to overcome the impacts of Helene.
And it’s this joining of forces that’s going to be critical for our recovery. No one can do it alone. The uniting of communities and collaboration among government agencies, nonprofits, and other groups are going to be imperative to start healing from the damages that we’ve sustained, both in terms of human losses and also the casualties of our wildlife and wild places.
From what we’ve been able to gather so far, the amphibians and reptiles along Helene’s long path through six states experienced a variety of fates, just like the people across the Southeastern US.
Some of the hardest hit areas in terms of human losses were also places where wildlife tended to be heavily impacted. As Asheville, North Carolina resident and ARC Executive Director JJ Apodaca explained, “I’m deeply worried about vulnerable species in the region, especially eastern hellbenders.”
Eastern hellbenders are stream-dwelling salamanders that suffered widespread habitat destruction due to massive floods in Western North Carolina. “These are fully aquatic salamanders that rely on our pristine mountain streams to survive, and I’m sure we’ve all seen pictures of what a lot of these waters look like now,” said Southern Appalachian Programs Coordinator Emilly Nolan, who also lives in Asheville.
The impacts to their habitat include substantial pollution, heavy erosion, sediments clouding the water and choking stream bottoms, and the force of the water causing major disturbances to their microhabitats, including the streambed rocks they need for hiding, foraging for food, and breeding.
Western North Carolina was a stronghold for this species, a fact that has likely now changed. “Even surviving individuals could have been displaced, ending up miles from their homes and in unsuitable habitats,” stated Field Biologist Nicole Dahrouge. We believe that the level of habitat destruction and loss of individuals probably significantly reduced many eastern hellbender populations here.
However, it will be a while before we realize the full effects that the floods had on this species. We have not yet been able to access any of our hellbender field sites due to road closures and dangerous conditions, and as a result, we don’t know the current status of the populations that we’ve been monitoring.
And it’s not just stream-dwelling salamanders that have been affected. For instance, a large number of landslides have occurred in the Hickory Nut Gorge, the sole habitat for the highly imperiled Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander.
Unfortunately, this may not bode well for this at-risk species, which is only found in this 14-mile-long gorge–and nowhere else in the world. We can’t yet check on their populations in person because of landslides and impassable roads, but we’re beginning to make assessments through satellite imagery.
Additionally, our imperative targeted work to protect Threatened bog turtles has been interrupted, and we’re currently unsure about how their populations have fared.
“We haven’t been able to access any of our field sites; many of the roads are still too dangerous to travel for the time being,” Emilly explained. “Not only that, but a majority of our work takes place along the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is closed indefinitely.”
However, our partners have shared reports on a few bog turtle habitats, which are usually muddy, shallowly inundated wetlands. Sadly, we know of one bog that was completely flooded with deep, standing water. But we also learned that initial assessments indicate that other key wetlands can likely be restored and should recover from the flood damage and sediment and rocks deposited when water flowed through.
On the other hand, many key habitats and priority species in different parts of the storm’s path appear largely unscathed. For example, for our PARCAs (Priority Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Areas) in the Florida Panhandle, the news looks promising at first glance; there were just a few trees blown over. These PARCAs are home to rare, imperiled species like Threatened frosted flatwoods salamanders and gopher frogs.
But there are unanswered questions in these PARCAs too. “My main concern is for some of the local populations of frosted flatwoods salamanders; their coastal, low-lying wetlands are extremely vulnerable to saltwater intrusion from storm surge,” said Nicole. We’re awaiting results on the salinity of those wetlands.
Fortunately, there was also very little damage in the Fort Stewart PARCA in eastern Georgia, where we’re working to recover another population of frosted flatwoods salamanders.
“There were some downed trees, but it was not as bad as we expected,” Field Biologist Rob Tiffin reported. “Once I learned we would be getting sustained heavy winds, I secured our outdoor salamander headstarting [captive rearing] tanks and was concerned when I heard the wind howling that night, but the next day, luckily, they were right where I left them.”
All of these disaster accounts provide dozens of lessons, and there are many more to come as we work alongside our partners to address the needs of affected species.
One of the key takeaways is that the impacts of catastrophes and other unpredictable events that happen by chance (stochastic events) are amplified by the everyday, chronic threats that these species face, which include habitat loss, disease, poaching, and invasive species.
This is precisely why we strategically focus on these challenges at ARC. Our place-based approach in PARCAs, protecting and restoring habitats, and our targeted conservation efforts for species help bolster them against disasters by creating larger, healthier, more resilient populations.
“My experiences during this disaster have reinforced my desire to build resilience, both for our natural and human communities,” said JJ. “As we see an ever-increasing number of widespread disasters, from hurricanes and flooding in the east to drought and wildfires in the west, it is the one way that we can help assure the survival of our native biodiversity and to help local communities in need.”
We’ll be doing just this in the coming weeks, months, and years. We’ll be assessing our next steps in the region and creating a recovery plan. We’ll be collaborating with local partners to clean up sites that need it and restore damaged habitats. In short, we’ll be working alongside our incredible community to do what needs to be done.
Nicole spoke for all of us at ARC when she said, “I really want to believe that, like the human communities in the affected areas, these species have it in them to battle back yet again.”
Personal Accounts from Asheville Team Members
Southern Appalachian Programs Coordinator Emilly Nolan
Emilly provided the following narrative about her experience living through Helene:
I don’t think anyone was prepared for how catastrophic this was going to be. It rained all day Thursday but nothing out of the ordinary. We had our neighbor over for dinner, and we joked about how we were excited for a little rain and a cozy day on Friday.
We were woken up Friday morning by the sound of transformers popping around the neighborhood and 80 mph wind gusts knocking trees down (including one on our roof). That’s when we realized this wasn’t an ordinary storm.
Shortly after checking in with loved ones that we were okay, our power and service cut out along with our water.
We were totally cut off from what was happening all around us. We were blocked from leaving our street by several downed trees and power lines for the next 2 days. When it was safe to leave the house on Saturday afternoon, we drove to check on friends and the immediate destruction around town was jaw dropping.
Next, we headed to the river to see what was left of our beloved River Arts District. Tears flowed when we saw the absolute devastation of every building along this stretch of the French Broad. But that was only the beginning of what we would we soon learn about the rest of the region and heartbreaking loss to entire towns affected by Hurricane Helene.
Executive Director JJ Apodaca
JJ published an article in Garden and Gun Magazine about his family’s experience with Helene, and the following is an excerpt:
The actual devastation of Helene was slow to unfold for my family. When we lost signal around 9:00 a.m. on Friday it seemed like a hiccup. Then we watched from our living room window as six white pines toppled in our backyard, leaning over like candles in a cake with too much frosting. At the time, this seemed like a big deal. Our view had been drastically changed. It was a real shame, until it wasn’t.
When the storm eased around noon, we emerged to see a huge tree down on our power line. I was worried at that point that I wasn’t going to be able to watch Alabama beat Georgia the next day. But as I walked to check on neighbors, the real destruction began to dawn on me. Scores of fallen trees had crushed roofs, cars, and power lines. Thankfully, everyone was safe in our twelve-house neighborhood. We were fortunate.
But we had no idea what the outside world held. I knew I had to get to my parents’ house to check on them, so we loaded chainsaws, axes, and straps into the Jeep. I made it to the first major intersection (okay, it’s just a stop sign), which held the next clue of the power of the storm. A creek I could normally jump over had completely destroyed the culvert and the road. There was just a gap where the bridge used to be. A slow drive over many power lines and branches revealed missing bridge after missing bridge, as if the Department of Transportation had finished all of the roads and hadn’t gotten around to putting in bridges quite yet.
Read the full article here.