Outdoors Maryland; 803

Coming up 10 million years of evolution wrong scientist face to face with the bottom walking crawfish country western Maryland critters. And. The majestic Golden Eagle makes a comeback along the Chesapeake. But for our next hour. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. DNR. Inspired by Nature. Here we go.

I think it's a big. Part of the charter she said. Hard times are you not quite sure. Her second. Album her hope right. I knew that was a good moment in the late 1970s and mid 80s biologists sent out along an American legend the giant hellbender salamander was on the decline today. Hell benders numbers are still dropping in spite of their status as an endangered species in Maryland. The new high tech tracking methods are helping scientists keep Elba news from slipping away forever from endangered to extinct. It's very clear that the problems that this population of this magnificent creature are

having are caused by US pollution of the stream at least either in the past or or currently has a lot to do with the decline of the hellbound. And one of the most interesting things about the hellbender is this particular species has been around for tens of millions of years. It's lasted twice a year. Other climate changes and it seems like since we're supposed to be one of the smarter species on the planet that we should figure out what we can do to let it continue its evolutionary history. Ed Thompson a natural heritage biologist with the wildlife and heritage division Department of Natural Resources was among the original scientists who detected hellbender decline. His partner in the current long term study is Dan feller regional ecologist wildlife and heritage division DNR. Their new

study will determine precisely what environmental remedies are needed to hold hellbender decline and promote their healthy rebound. Tens of millions of years ago the giant salamanders were spread all over. The northern hemisphere of the earth. They were in Asia in Europe and North America. Several species. And I think that there's been a great decrease where there are now only basically two species left the hellbender that we had here in North America and the giant salamander that's found in Asia. You want to make sure they continue to survive they're very unique. This rock works this movement. It's a little shallow. Like this. Here's a little rock website a clear example I get impatient when I reach in there to feel well.

Let's keep it there. It's really fun. As the as the cloudiness slowly clears up the hellbender just appears out of the merch. So little is known about the mysterious hellbender that basics like habitat range growth rate and even sex differences are still law in the murky realm of theory and speculation. Ed and Dan will survey the same stretches of river year after year recapturing familiar. And hopefully discovering new ones. Right now are collecting a lot of data capture sites. This is really to help us to learn

more about the habitat the hellbender specifically the light. And that we will go to stretches of the river that do not have held banners and say Is this habitat present should they be here. And then if they are not then we know that there is something else that's missing. Well hold. On. Let's remember this one. Big. One. Yes. Yes. Thanks I was not in back in the crack there like that. You know in the

zone I'm trying. To help. There it is. All right. You kept. It. Check it with the reader Mark or not. Well the way that we're marking our individuals is a system that has been used for several years to mark a valuable pads. And it's a barcode that you injected under the skin and then you have a reader or something like a reader that you use at a supermarket checkout that reads the bar code and then tells you what individual you have. And these individuals are marked for their entire life.

So we can track individual all those years. There we go without a reading. 0 1 4 1 6 3. Yes yes that's OK. Good. Recapture yet far from where we kind of before. 3:00 a couple yards couple yards that's how usually isn't it. As one of this along Dan. Well using data from other receipts it's going to be 25 years old and. Only 55 years in captivity. That's wild and. Yeah. Now. You can see the dorsolateral folds they often have chunks taken out of them for some reason we don't know if it's you know in 25 30 years of living. You might have a run in with a snapping turtle. Maybe a rock fell on you. Who knows what happened starting the

slimy. Well a lot of amphibians when they're on when they're being handled rough or you know in a process of being eaten by a predator. Give off line many species of poisonous. Now. The tale this one has a really wide tail. Some of them are aren't quite as wide as this. But they use that for short bursts of speed. I guess when they're getting away from predators maybe it's used in breeding. Now this one has to look at dimple right back that's a dead lion characteristic. A lot of times we could tell these individuals even without marking them but a lot of them do look alike though. You know that many times we have individuals that have no toes. We don't know what happened there. This one appears to have all those toes. What 6 you think this is. Well the largest ones are usually females but this one has a look then it's wrong we might say it's a male. Looks like a male. I never saw that before

you're right look at Definitely. It's got to be a male. Yeah so a male we didn't know that it was like that last week. No it wasn't. So within one week the vent has become swollen. Being close to the breeding season. All right. Also this is a big male because a female as opposed to the biggest. And it has a big wide head. It just has a different stature. So we're going to start to learn to tell. Look at that. Well evidently. The slime is is defense and chances are it's it's poisonous or at the very least it's foul tasting. So that's obviously a defense for some type of predation. You know if it's foul tasting. It's bitter. Taste. Yes. Well that is that. Now I

hope if I drop over five minutes. I don't know what to do. You seem to swim school. I continue to lift these little rocks that look good just in case there's little. Crayfish. Crayfish or of these supposed to be looking for help and so that's one thing we're pretty certain is not the problem. The crayfish population here is very robust.

The hellbender is restricted to rivers of the Ohio drainage system in the western part of town. So far we've had one full field season and half of this field season and there should be more help on these when we find the other thing that's really concerning us up to this point is that every help on the we part has been a big individual in other words the average size has been around 17 1/2 inches. That means that most of them are 20 years plus. The root cause. And obviously if you have a long lived animal. And you find nothing but old adults. That could mean that they're not recruiting themselves enough to be viable in the future. After the first discovery clicker Ryall of the. Effort held under remains high disturbingly an exhaustingly on. One of the problems with trying to catch hell banners that there are large rocks that are just

impossible forth to lift. There's crevices in the bedrock that we can't get down into. We have a clicker that we keep track of the number of rocks that we left a number of people that we have. And it's a thin and effort measurement. Then once we catch however many held banners who can compare effort per hellbender and give an idea then from time to time and from year to year what the hellbender population doing isn't increasing as a decreasing one of the size of the individual does or reproduction. That's all important. First Allison whether or not it's a healthy population. I like this rock even though it's shallow. I'm going to reach in there. You got it. Yeah I think you can spin it enough. I can see from the.

Head his head poked out back here but he backed back in so he's now just wait he's still there. Patience is the key. The only time we ever lost hell Berners we got impatient. What we need. OK last resort you know or that's great. I missed two twenty two is used to put him temporarily asleep or nothing. Yeah. But.

Six hundred forty six. Good sized hellbender. Killing. One hundred fifty six. Yeah Vienna Well it would be. Like a yeah. OK. Right there. Clearly to check it. OK that's it. She's got it right.

Yeah. Homeowners here last year and then our first capture this year we had one. We think it's a female so we called her you know put her back under a rock. She might lay eggs on her head. This is where we want to go in. Yeah. Find a path along the water conditions are perfect today. Great. The next day spirits are refresh and then plan to survey a stretch of stream they've come to know low. Rock by rock. Here in the biggest hellbender they have found to date. They begin making their way toward the mother of all held a news.

Well it just seems like it's a shame that at this point in time in its evolutionary history we're the ones causing all the trouble for a lot of the watershed is not far sighted anymore number one a lot of it's in agriculture during a time of year when hellbender is laying their eggs there's so much runoff from all the agriculture in the watershed that it could cause failure of breeding that year just pure suffocation of the eggs and one of our biggest concerns are that the population is isolated from interacting with an overall larger population of hell banners like it was and historically this river after it goes several miles has acid line drains from into it and it's basically dead. And we don't know if it's enough. Habitat to have a viable sustaining population. Another thing is this particular population and others is that there

were periods mainly in the 60s and 70s were adults were collected and taken out of school and for an animal that is very long lived and has a slow reproductive rate. That is a significant impact. Every time we've done the section it's been so predictable. She's going to make us work today. A lot of good still not clear. There she is that it you see. She heads to put it there. Oh I see here she's got silt on her. She's the biggest hellbender we've cut yet 20 inches and that's about the maximum for the size string. She's going to back I think there. Yeah yeah. It's really important that we protect the hellbender that we have here may be a matter of

time but they need to recover we may need to augment the population or we may need to enact further habitat in Perth. So there's still hope that the hellbender will come back. You can't underestimate this magnificent creatures have been around so long. I mean the pollution the collecting back of the rivers it's only right that there should be some kind of human effort to rehabilitate the population and see if we can help. Maryland's majestic Bold eagle. Though just recently faced with extinction. Our national symbol has made an extraordinary comeback. The bald eagle is

returning to Maryland nesting sites giving wildlife researchers a reason to celebrate the president and ponder the future. Glenn terror's is a bald eagle specialist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Early on it was a good symbol for an endangered species effort because it symbolized hey something's happening with our national symbol and the environment we got to do something about. Now I think it equally serves as a good sum a pretty danged movie because here's a species that we have taken corrective action for and has recovered this particular body that's may point out how well the recovery to go on here in Maryland. I mean here we are along the edge of the D.C. beltway with the body Eagle

Nest. Right here and the capital. Just. 10 miles up the river. And bald eagles and US are not exactly where we were ever during the bald eagles the wind up. In 1977 only 41 pairs of bald eagles nested in Maryland. In 1998. There were 230 to a five fold increase thanks to its remarkable comeback. The bald eagle may soon be removed from the endangered species list. But ever vigilant. There is fears the Eagles success could create complacency. And a return to the days when bald eagle numbers in Maryland were perilously low. Aerial surveillance of traditional nesting sites is one way he continually tracks the species stability. Eagles make surveying a little easier because they used the same master lease the same area year

to year it's a very big conspicuous nasty bald eagles nest in Maryland usually around the wooded shorelines of the Chesapeake Bay and the tidal tributaries. All of our nice sites are within a mile of big bodies of water. That's where you don't find a mess then. Other times it a year when they're not nesting they can range throughout the state amount they messed around the Chesapeake Bay Area for one reason they feed primarily on fish and fish that are in shallow water and near the surface. Well one of the ironies of the eagle recovery. In Maryland to test the Bay Area. Revolves around IRA cultural lands pesticide DDT cause a lot of problems 40 Abel's and was partly or greatly responsible for the decline in

the birds in the 50s and 60s that pesticide was used Fraggle cultural production. Now today the pesticides are gone and I recall to a land support most of our bald eagles. The great potential threat to the bald eagles future development is steadily growing along the wooded shorelines of the Chesapeake and its tributaries. Already a small percentage of the shoreline developments are going up on land where eagles traditionally nest. The DNR tracks development and sometimes controls it for the benefit of eagle habitat. In some situations where a subdivision is already basically in place but no houses have been built. We resort to. A time of year restrictions on. House construction and the time of year restrictions are to ensure that is able to have an opportunity to not successfully nasty away and raise young and

then after which we allow the House has been constructed. That the average life of a bald eagles nest is usually about five or six years. Anyway the Regardless of what is going on on the ground so if we can buy five or six years in a subdivision context and then the birds move it somewhat mimics what really happens out in the wild except that there is now people associated with this particular illness. It's. The long term prognosis for a bigger population in Maryland in Chesapeake Bay I guess is somewhat questionable in the sense that it will really depend on how we manage the landscape particularly the wooded Sure line areas which are now supporting nesting populations and wondering if you'll ations if we if we control the amount of development

pressure in wooded areas along river systems of tidal portions of the Chesapeake Bay and of tidal rivers the eagle population will do fine. On the other hand if demand in those areas become developed in the next 50 years or so the Eagles won't really have a whole lot of places left other than public lands to survive in the population of the colony and so the long term prognosis for eagles is really in society's hands and decide how we're going to use our landscape in the future.