Hellbenders Hurting

[blindpig]

http://www.cnah.org/news.asp?ID=180

On top of habitat destruction and stupid persecution Hellbenders in Missouri are now showing increasingly disturbing numbers of deformities. This species is very sensitive to water quality, another canary in the coal mine. And worthy if it had no utility to us whatsoever.

[ugarte]

1. Broken link

sorry

[blindpig]

3. thanks, fixed n/t

[naturalselection]

2. Yes

I live in MO and work closely with the state conservation agency. They have not found young hellbenders for many years now, only adults. But they can't seem to figure out what is happening.:shrug:

You are correct in that hellbenders are very senstive to water quality, so I imagine that it can be several different things, or a mixture of all of them.

Change in water temps
pesticide/herbicide runoff
waste water
heavy metals

But then again, it should be easy to measure all of these variables. However, it is difficult to tie them directly to the demise of the hellbender.

[Delphinus]

4. Just one more link

in the chain of life being snuffed out.

When are we going to wake up and see what damage we're doing?