![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Tracy-Davids-in-water-3500px-1.jpg\")
Tracy Davids, senior southeast representative for the Defenders of Wildlife, wades through the Davidson River while explaining the hellbender breeding season. \/\/ Watchdog photo by Katie Linsky Shaw<\/p>\nThe ideal habitat of the Eastern hellbender that Tracy Davids described was pretty much what she saw on Tuesday morning as she stood ankle-deep in the Davidson River.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelatively shallow, fast-moving, highly oxygenated water because (hellbenders) breathe through their skin,\u201d said Davids, senior southeast representative for the Defenders of Wildlife environmental organization. \u201cThey also need large flat rocks for cover and nesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
And trees, she said, such as the vast stands surrounding the Davidson in the Pisgah National Forest that filter silt and sand from runoff \u2013 the greatest threat to the survival of the largest salamanders in North America \u2013 and the beech, sycamores, and white oaks that formed a green arch over the riffles upstream from where Davids stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the tree cover here. This is great,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is keeping the stream cold, shaded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tracy Davids, senior southeast representative for the Defenders of Wildlife, wades through the Davidson River while explaining the hellbender breeding season. \/\/ Watchdog photo by Katie Linsky Shaw<\/p>\n
But because of changes in federal policy, even this prime, protected hellbender habitat in Pisgah is in danger, environmental advocates say \u2013 so much so that this beloved icon of Southern Appalachia is now emerging as a symbol of the unraveling safety net for vulnerable wildlife.<\/p>\n
Just nine months ago, the prospects of the ancient species\u2019 survival brightened notably<\/a> when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) formally backed the listing of hellbenders as federally endangered.<\/p>\n But while the job of finalizing that listing is in the hands of that agency, it is also backing rule changes that environmental advocates say would render this status all but meaningless.\u00a0<\/p>\n In June, the service published a proposal to rescind<\/a> the decades-old Roadless Rule covering vast swaths of federal land, including 172,000 acres in North Carolina. This would allow two of the main generators of stream-clogging sediment \u2013 logging and road building \u2013 in formerly roadless tracts in the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests, the 2023 management plan for which already called for a nearly six-fold expansion<\/a> in the acreage open to timber harvests.<\/p>\n The promotion of logging and other revenue-generating activity has also been used to justify<\/a> a proposal carrying an even greater potential threat to endangered wildlife, environmentalists say.<\/p>\n In April, the FWS published a plan to remove habitat destruction from the 1973 Endangered Species Act\u2019s (ESA) definition of \u201charm\u201d to listed animals, limiting their protection under the law to preventing the direct injuring or killing of animals and their removal from their natural surroundings.<\/p>\n A federal official touted<\/a> the elimination of the Roadless Rule as \u201cremoving absurd obstacles to common-sense management of our natural resources,\u201d and the proposed amendment to the ESA says it is an overdue corrective to a burdensome and inaccurate interpretation of the law.<\/p>\n But habitat loss is the main threat to about 90 percent of listed plant and animal species, said Ben Prater, the Defenders\u2019 southeast program director. And hellbenders are an especially clear example of a creature dependent on \u2013 and representative of \u2013 wild areas that humans also happen to love, said Will Harlan, regional director of the Center for Biological Diversity.<\/p>\n \u201cPreviously, we felt somewhat assured that many of the most robust hellbender populations were on national forest lands in western North Carolina,\u201d Harlan said. \u201cBut now we\u2019re very worried, because the Forest Service is actively pursuing aggressive timber targets that are unprecedented in scale and will directly harm hellbenders.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cendearing\u201d snot otter<\/p>\n What is it about hellbenders? Why are people so taken with a creature that the wildlife service\u2019s Species Status Assessment report described as having \u201csmall \u2026 lidless\u201d eyes, drab coloration, and bodies covered with protective \u201cmucus.\u201d<\/p>\n Why was an animal commonly known as the \u201csnot otter,\u201d recently adopted as the mascot<\/a> of an Asheville charter school? Why did last weekend\u2019s Hellbender Festival in Spruce Pine draw such throngs of attendees that they cleared out the Defenders\u2019 supply of education material by mid-afternoon?<\/p>\n It\u2019s partly because the physical features described in the assessment report \u2013 which formed the scientific basis for the proposal to list the species as endangered \u2013 are testament to its ancient origins, Harlan said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been around for tens of millions of years,\u201d he said, \u201cand they look like it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re primordial,\u201d he said. \u201cThey breathe through their wrinkled, folded, flappy skin. They have these amazing grip pads on their toes that enable them to cling to rocks and survive through catastrophic flooding like (Tropical Storm) Helene. They also have this really unique facial feature where they look like they\u2019re smiling. They\u2019ve got these tiny, beady eyes and this smirk that just makes them so endearing.\u201d<\/p>\n So does reproductive behavior that flips the gendered stereotype embodied by protective mama bears.<\/p>\n \u201cThe males are den masters,\u201d Harlan said. \u201cThey spend months guarding the fertilized eggs until they hatch, and they are phenomenally committed to that job. They will stay beneath those boulders to protect their eggs for months at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n Hellbenders are efficient predators and such ruthless competitors that the males\u2019 mating-season battles over territory are a possible source of their names, Prater said on the Tuesday visit to the Davidson.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ll actually lock on each other\u2019s jaws and just swirl around,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of a sudden there\u2019s this roiling, boiling hell coming out of the water.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben Prater, Defenders of Wildlife\u2019s southeast program director, explains the additional protections hellbenders would receive under the Endangered Species Act \u2014 if it is not weakened by the proposed rule change. \/\/ Watchdog video by Katie Linsky Shaw<\/p>\n But for much of the rest of the year, they serve as a powerful reminder of the benefits of living what Hans Lohmeyer, Conserving Carolina\u2019s stewardship manager, called a \u201cdocile\u201d lifestyle.<\/p>\n As a grad student, Lohmeyer took part in a study measuring how much the \u201cprimarily\u201d nocturnal animals move around at night.<\/p>\n Not all that much, the study found. Even in the darkness, he said, they live protected under large rocks in streambeds, waiting to snag prey such as crayfish carried by currents to the openings of their downstream-facing lairs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey weren\u2019t, like, running around everywhere at night when everyone else was sleeping,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n This helps explain both the species\u2019 astonishingly long lifespan \u2013 potentially more than 50 years, according to one study cited by the assessment \u2013 and their size; because they grow throughout their lives, only the passage of decades allows them to reach lengths of more than two feet.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you think of it, kind of like in the sense of a turtle, they\u2019re much more likely to live longer because they\u2019re not exerting life force constantly and forcing their metabolism and heart to continue to keep up with that,\u201d Lohmeyer said. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely an evolutionary strategy that makes sense for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Habitat loss, population decline<\/p>\n Or it did before logging, road building, water pollution and development began to destroy their habitat.<\/p>\n These required surroundings once extended across parts of 15 states, according to the assessment report, which documented 626 historic populations from northern Alabama to western New York state.<\/p>\n Scientists returning to these locations for the assessment found that 76 percent of these communities are \u201cthought to be either extirpated or declining,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n Only 90 of the remaining populations were classified in the healthiest category, \u201cstable and recruiting,\u201d the report said, and precisely half of those groups, 45, lie within the Tennessee River Valley \u2013 most of them, by far, in the mountains of western North Carolina.<\/p>\n The clear, cool streams of the highest Appalachians were always home to the densest documented populations of hellbenders, Harlan said, but their continued health here is largely due to the protection offered by public land ownership and management.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pisgah and Nantahala national forests are home of the most robust populations of hellbenders anywhere on the planet,\u201d Harlan said. \u201cThis is where they are doing best and where they have the best chance of surviving.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the hellbenders\u2019 range, populations have declined or succumbed to what the report lists as the second-greatest threat to their continued survival \u2013 \u201cwater quality degradation\u201d from sources such as \u201cagricultural runoff, coal mining activities, and unpermitted industrial discharges.\u201d<\/p>\n Spills of toxic waste have been directly implicated in hellbender die-offs in heavily industrialized regions of its range, including the drainage basins of the Ohio River and the Kanawha River in West Virginia, the report says.<\/p>\n Waterways running through privately owned land are subject to organic waste contamination from municipal treatment plants and livestock that saps their dissolved oxygen, according to the assessment. And clearing land for development allows direct sun exposure, exacerbating the warming effects of climate change.<\/p>\n Development also generates sedimentation, which the report calls the \u201cprimary stressor of the Eastern hellbender.\u201d That\u2019s especially true in the national forests where hellbenders are largely protected from other human-caused threats, said Davids, the Defenders representative, who was able to show the negative impact of clay, silt and sand carried by runoff.<\/p>\n The likely source was Pisgah\u2019s degraded gravel roads, a small portion of the nation\u2019s $8.6 billion backlog<\/a> of inadequately maintained forest tracks.\u00a0<\/p>\n With fewer exposed rocks to agitate the water, its dissolved oxygen levels have declined. Sediment blankets the habitat of the crayfish and insects hellbenders prey upon. It seals the openings beneath rocks that the salamanders are able to find, but not dig out, with their short limbs.<\/p>\n These have evolved to cling to rocks, she said. \u201cThey aren\u2019t made for excavating.\u201d<\/p>\n Undermining protection?<\/p>\n The proposals to eliminate the Roadless Rule, change the definition of harm in the ESA and list the hellbenders as endangered are running on parallel tracks.<\/p>\n All have been published on the Federal Register, allowing for public review and comment. None can be finalized until the FWS considers these comments in the context of available scientific data.<\/p>\n An FWS spokesperson contacted by the Asheville Watchdog responded, without allowing the use of her name, that the agency is still pursuing the endangered listing for the hellbender.<\/p>\n For information about the plan to alter the ESA, she provided a link to the published notice on the Register, which says that the interpretation of the law including \u201chabitat modification \u2026 runs contrary to the \u2018best meaning\u2019 of harm.\u201d<\/p>\n Which is, the notice continues, \u201cto \u2026 hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect\u201d protected species.<\/p>\n And in August, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins said rescinding <\/a>the Roadless Rule would remove \u201cburdensome, outdated, one-size-fits-all regulations that not only put people and livelihoods at risk but also stifle economic growth in rural America.\u201d<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s too early to know exactly how the proposed rule changes will play out in Pisgah and Nantahala, Harlan and Prater said, they could greatly curtail current protections.<\/p>\n The new proposed language in the ESA mirrors that of former Justice Antonin Scalia\u2019s dissenting opinion in the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the ESA definition of harm to include destruction of habitat. It would also limit protection to about what the species currently receives under its \u201crelatively toothless\u201d designation as endangered by North Carolina, Harlan said.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if hellbenders are listed federally \u2013 far from a certainty, he said, given the agency\u2019s stated opposition to added environmental regulation \u2013 the law as currently enforced would require other federal agencies to consult with FWS about plans that potentially impact the species\u2019 habitat.<\/p>\n Take, for example, the expanding logging allowed by the forests\u2019 management plan and potentially allowed by the proposed elimination of the Roadless Rule, he said.<\/p>\n The ESA would mandate the U.S. Forest Service to clear timber harvesting plans with FWS, which wouldn\u2019t prohibit the practice but could restrict logging to certain areas, Harlan said, or \u201crequire a 100-foot buffer along a hellbender stream where no logging occurs, to absorb some of the runoff and prevent too much sedimentation.\u201d<\/p>\n Another example is the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s (FEMA\u2019s) post-Helene removal of debris from waterways such as the upper reaches of the French Broad and Little rivers. Lohmeyer, the Conserving Carolina stewardship manager, has previously said the excesses of the process created an \u201cecological crisis<\/a>\u201d that included the destruction of hellbender habitat.<\/p>\n Hellbenders populations that were diminished (but remarkably, not destroyed) by the storm, were further harmed by cleanup crews that, Prater said, \u201cliterally rode machines up and down\u201d hellbender streams.<\/p>\n With the law interpreted as it has been for decades \u2013 and the hellbenders listed as endangered \u2013 Prater said, FEMA would have needed FWS approval for its clearance plans, and \u201chaving a listing would have given us additional support to argue against those actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Extinction events<\/p>\n But the larger reason for providing full endangered protection to hellbenders can be traced to another reason the animals are so cherished by the people of western North Carolina, Harlan said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve become a symbol of southern Appalachia because they live in our most pristine places, where people love to recreate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Where there are hellbenders, there are healthy trout populations, he said; there are clear streams for swimming and kayaking.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019ve become a source of pride and symbolic of the health and vitality of this region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n That pride is evident in the public embrace of Defenders\u2019 campaigns to protect hellbenders, such as the one urging visitors to wild areas not to move rocks the animals need for shelter, Davids said.<\/p>\n And considering the species\u2019 long history, this pride should extend to providing enough protection that it doesn\u2019t die out on our watch, she said.<\/p>\n The lineage of the hellbender can be traced back 150-million years, about half as long ago as the formation of the famously ancient Appalachian Mountains. They or their ancestors lived on earth longer before the extinction of the dinosaurs, roughly 66 million years ago, than they have since. And all the threats to their continued survival \u2013 climate change, pollution, development and sedimentation \u2013 are far more recent and \u201cman-made,\u201d Davids said.<\/p>\n \u201cHellbenders survived the last extinction event,\u201d she said. \u201cWhether or not they survive the next one remains to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments on this story, which has been republished on our Facebook page.<\/a> Please submit your comments there.<\/p>\n Asheville Watchdog<\/a> is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Dan DeWitt is The Watchdog\u2019s deputy managing editor\/senior reporter. Email: ddewitt@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog\u2019s local reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org\/support-our-publication\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-2025-09-04-7.55.38-AM-1.png\")
A map shows the historical range of the Eastern hellbender. Note the dense concentration of populations in the waterways of western North Carolina. \/\/ Image courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u2019s Eastern Hellbender Species Status Assessment Report<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Screenshot-2025-09-04-11.05.12-AM.png\")
Prime hellbender habitat in the Davidson River. Hellbenders feed and nest under large rocks in clear streams. \/\/ Watchdog photo by Katie Linsky Shaw<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Ben-Prater-with-sign-3500px.jpg\")
Ben Prater, Defenders of Wildlife\u2019s Southeast Program Director, explains why the popular activity of rock stacking harms hellbenders and other aquatic creatures. \/\/ Watchdog photo by Katie Linsky Shaw<\/p>\n