This summer, Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden staff participated in a hellbender release with Nick Burgmeier, Research Biologist and Extension Wildlife Specialist from Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. Zoo staff, along with Purdue students and researchers released 38 hellbenders into underwater enclosures that will allow the salamanders to acclimate to the Blue River system before a final release can take place.
Hellbenders are large aquatic salamanders residing in the northeast geographic region of the United States. The salamanders’ habitat spans from the Mississippi River to the Susquehanna River in New York and Pennsylvania. These salamanders require cool, clear streams and rivers with many large rocks for their habitat.
Hellbender populations have severely declined throughout their range, mainly because of diminishing stream quality due to habitat destruction. Another contributor to hellbender vulnerability is maltreatment through fishing, including culling contests. Once, popular beliefs held that hellbenders were poisonous and depleted fish stocks – Not true.
In 2015, Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden signed on as one of four zoos working with Purdue University in a partnership to protect Hellbenders. The zoo constructed a captive-rearing system for young hellbenders and created an artificial stream to emulate conditions for breeding adult hellbenders. Now, the zoo offers visitors an up close view of the daily care these salamanders receive at the Hell-Bent on Conservation habitat and education center at our Discovery Center.
How You Can Help
To learn more about our efforts to protect the aquatic salamander visit the Hell-Bent on Conservation habitat, or online at Current Conservation Efforts.
To sustain a healthy ecosystem it is important to protect our native hellbenders; below is how you can help:
- Support Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden by participating in our public conservation initiatives.
- Use practices promoted by local watershed group or soil and water conservation district.
- Do not pour oil, antifreeze, or paint thinner down drains.
- Properly dispose of household chemicals.
- Maintain septic systems.
- Report person(s) collecting or engaging in behavior harmful to hellbenders to local conservation law enforcement.
- Properly use lawn-care products, herbicides, and pesticides.
Purdue researchers lead Hellbender release team across the Blue River.