Salamanders Indicate Waterway Health In Prince William County

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VA — Salamanders in Prince William County are helping researchers understand the health of their habitat. Volunteers in Dumfries helped set traps for the amphibians to measure the health of local waterways.

The traps block small pools where salamanders breed in the late spring and early summer, according to a news release from the county. When salamanders attempt to enter the pools, they fall into a plastic cup where a damp sponge keeps the animal hydrated until volunteers retrieve the specimen.

Nancy Berlin is a natural resource specialist and master gardener coordinator with the Virginia Cooperative Extension. "This is a big effort," she said about building the traps. Berlin also explained why the salamanders are being collected. "We’re just trying to establish presence, absence and diversity."

Dewey's Run Creek in Dumfries was recently restored, and the Prince William County Department of Public Works needed to know if the creek could attract and support salamanders.

Tom Dombrowski is an environmental engineer with the Department of Public Works. "Nobody really knows if stream restoration improves a biological habitat," he said. "We know it stops nitrogen and phosphorous and stuff like that from going into the watershed."

Dombrowski explained that amphibians like salamanders are a great measure of a waterway's health. "The reason amphibians are so important is because their skin is so sensitive that everything in the environment soaks into their skin," he said. "They’re an indicator of the quality of the environment they’re living in."

Volunteers came out to Dewey's Run Creek to help place the traps and collect salamanders. "There was a lot of effort put into restoring the stream, and we need to understand how it’s affecting everything," Tim Chenault, a volunteer, said. "This is monitoring to understand that the restoration is working."