Last week, Center for Biological Diversity, Waterkeeper Alliance, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper, Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper, and Waterkeepers Chesapeake scored a victory in a lawsuit against U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (the Service), in which we challenged the agency’s denial of Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection to Eastern hellbender salamanders. District Judge Lewis J. Liman set aside the Service’s decision and instructed the agency to issue a new decision consistent with law.

The Service’s decision to deny protection to the hellbender was largely based on unproven, though laudable, population-augmentation efforts such as the use of artificial nest boxes or release of juvenile hellbenders raised in captivity from wild-caught eggs. The court found that the Service unlawfully relied on conservation measures that had not yet been implemented and determined effective and that did not address sedimentation, a primary threat to the species.

Hellbenders are an important “indicator species”  because their presence in a waterway indicates good water quality. They are very sensitive to pollution and silt, and can only live in clean, cool, fast-moving rivers and streams. They also need a stable food chain that can provide them with food they rely on – primarily crayfish. These enormous river-dwelling salamanders can grow longer than 2 feet long! Nearly 80% of hellbender populations have 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. While acknowledging that those threats will likely intensify, the Service nonetheless arbitrarily found that the hellbender’s protection under the ESA was not warranted.

Now that the Service will have to reconsider its flawed decision to deny the hellbender ESA protection, we intend to hold the Service accountable to the law, and we expect that it will ultimately find that listing the hellbender as endangered or threatened is scientifically and legally warranted. A decision to list the hellbender would also require the Service to designate “critical habitat” for its survival, which would have the additional benefits of protecting the remaining cool, clean waters that people and other organisms also rely on to survive.   

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The hellbender was once widespread in 15 states but has been eliminated from much of its historic range. The animal still lives from southern New York to northern Georgia and from the central Appalachians westward to Missouri. Remaining populations are concentrated in the Ohio River watershed, the Tennessee and Kanawha River watersheds (both major tributaries to the Ohio River), and the Susquehanna River watershed. There’s also a small population in Missouri that has already been listed as endangered.

Hellbenders are a completely aquatic species, commonly found in cool, highly oxygenated, perennial streams. Boulders, especially large, flat rocks, serve as nest rocks and provide shelter and cover, and are the most important indicator of adult hellbender habitat. Hellbenders breathe through their skin, but also have lungs they can use in some conditions.

Hellbenders are primarily nocturnal and move by walking on stream bottoms, but can swim short distances to avoid predators. Hellbender lifespan is estimated to be at least 25-30 years and may be closer to 50. 
Known by colorful names like “devil dog,” “snot otter,” “Allegheny river monster,” “grampus” and “old lasagna sides,” the eastern hellbender’s nicknames reference the loose, frilly skin along its sides and its mucus-like covering, which is believed to provide protection from abrasion and parasites and may have antibiotic properties.

The groups filed a formal notice of intent in March 2021 to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its decision in April 2019 and filed its complaint in July 2021.