We Degrade; It Warns
The hellbender is the largest North American salamander with two subspecies, the Ozark and Eastern hellbenders. The slimy, spotted amphibian is characterized by a flattened head and small eyes. At maturity, they grow up to be many feet long and live as long as thirty years. Hellbenders are primarily nocturnal and walk on stream bottoms, occasionally swimming short distances to avoid predators. Their camouflaged complexion and tendency to hide beneath large, flat rocks and small stones disguises them from predators.
Historically, Eastern hellbenders were found in clear, fast-flowing mountain streams in 15 states. As of late 2024, it was found that only 12 percent of populations are stable and successfully reproducing, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The hellbender is such a rare sight that I have never seen one, despite spending a significant chunk of every summer soaking in Appalachian waterways. The waters tread by the Eastern hellbender are in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The frailty of Eastern hellbender populations is yet another stark example of human activity inhibiting ecosystem services. Hellbenders are a “clean water indicator species,” as they inhabit and thrive in clean, oxygenated water. Staunchly resemblant of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the hellbender disappears from waterways whose quality has been diminished by human activity. Locations where hellbenders thrive serve not only as indicators of high-water quality, but also as indicators of entire ecosystems’ wellbeing. Hellbenders nationwide are struggling to find waterways of substantive quality to inhabit, hence the need for a change in our polluting ways and protections guarding the salamander. When the hellbender disappears, the buzzes, hums, and chirps of beings of the same ecosystem vanish too. Alongside removal from their habitat and killing, primary threats to Eastern hellbenders include poor water quality, stream sedimentation, habitat loss, damming projects, and disease.
As the subspecies had already been engaged in a years-long fight for its survival, Hurricane Helene brought unprecedented flooding to the southern Appalachian Mountains, leaving the species with an even more uncertain future. The waters that I once knew and that Eastern hellbenders called home have become unrecognizable. Rivers, streams, and creeks in Western North Carolina now run different courses, having carved new paths into the landscape. I stand in front of river spots I used to know, staring blankly into the murky water. Eastern hellbenders in Southern Appalachia, already threatened by waters tainted by various polluting industrial activity, are now under more dire circumstances, with Helene bringing along greater contamination, habitat disturbance, and loss of prey.
The hellbender has remained buoyant for nearly 100 years as its livelihood has been continuously challenged by mankind. In the 1930s, sportsmen erroneously hunted and killed hellbenders. The oversized salamanders’ unique appearance led the men to believe that they ate trout. Despite the challenges we’ve thrown at the hellbender throughout our complicated history, we can agree that the hellbender gifts us the increasingly prevalent indications of environmental affliction. Activists have been trying to help the public and policymakers connect the dots that protecting the hellbender will give umbrella safeguards to thousands of other species that rely on clean water.
Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Maryland list the hellbender as endangered; Alabama lists it as threatened, and New York lists it as a species of special concern. It seems that low recognition rates are a slap in the face as hellbender populations continue declining due to pollution and the damming of streams and rivers. The Ozark hellbender was listed as endangered in 2011 by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but when the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Eastern hellbender under the Endangered Species Act in 2010, its request was declined.
The Eastern hellbender needs help now more than ever. Thankfully the subspecies have now gained the support of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is now proposing to list the salamander as endangered. The proposal comes at a particularly important time as the implications of Hurricane Helene on hellbender livelihood in Southern Appalachia make a compelling case for increased protection. As we near the green light for jumping back in the waters of Western North Carolina, I hold hope that the hellbender’s newfound but overdue protection allows me to lay my eyes on one someday.
This long-overdue proposal comes following a lawsuit the Center for Biological Diversity filed on behalf of Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Middle Susquehanna RiverkeeperAssociation, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, and Waterkeeper Alliance. When the Center announced its plan to sue Fish and Wildlife over the denied listing in 2021, it said that nearly 80 percent of hellbender populations had already been lost or are in decline due to agricultural and industrial water pollution, habitat destruction, sedimentation, warming waters, dams and other impoundments, and climate change. The parable of the Eastern hellbender follows the path warned by Rachel Carson, particularly in her Silent Spring, which gives notice that continued environmental degradation coupled with unwillingness to change has detrimental impacts on the ecosystems that surround us.
RCC National Environment Leadership Fellow — Carson Mease — Appalachian State
Carson is a senior Sustainable Development major concentrating in Environmental Studies at Appalachian State University, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Boone, North Carolina. Carson will spend the summer working as a farm hand on App State’s Sustainable Development Teaching and Research Farm, where they continue to broaden their knowledge on sustainable agricultural production and the preservation, restoration, and symbiosis of the land.
