Ambi: Leaves rustling, walking
JD: So when we lift a log like this, it's really long, somewhat long, we just kinda want to lift it up and take a quick glance and look for anything moving because they're definitely going to try to avoid being eaten….
C: Jena Donnell is a communications specialist with the state Department of Wildlife Conservation. She’s showing me the ropes — or rather, logs — of a salamander search. We’re looking for the Rich Mountain salamander. The state helps the U.S. Forest Service with an annual survey of the amphibian.
JD: They're only found in Oklahoma and Arkansas. And within Oklahoma, they're only found in three counties. So, kind of keeping an eye on a rare or limited species is a pretty big deal for us.
C: It’s a big deal because salamanders, like this one, can tell us a lot about the environment. It’s also among the state’s species of greatest conservation need.
JH: It can really be an indicator of what our habitat is doing…
C: Jocelyn Howell is a wildlife biologist for the forest service. She’s been working in the Ouachita National Forest for about four years. She says the Rich Mountain salamander is an indicator and umbrella species. Meaning…
JH: It can determine that the habitat is changing and we might need to do something to get the habitat back so we're not losing multiple species or anything like that.
C: Survey records date back to the 1990s. So far, Howell says there haven’t been major changes to the environment. There is logging in the national forest. But she says cutting high up in the mountains — where these salamanders live — can be difficult and generally doesn’t happen.
C: We’re lifting up rocks and logs in timed 30-minute segments. As a reporter, I’m usually a neutral bystander. But today I can’t resist seeing what’s crawling around below. In a biodiversity hotspot like the Ouachitas, it could be anything.
JD: Hey Jo, there's a copperhead!
JH: Oh wow!
C: Other animals like birds, or even bears can be found in the forest, which has a majority acreage in Arkansas. Priscilla Crawford is the coordinator of the Oklahoma Natural Heritage Inventory at OU. She says the Ouachita Mountains are the state’s most biodiverse region.
PC: What's kind of interesting about Oklahoma is that we're diverse across the state, but we also share those habitats with our neighboring states, and we're often on the edge of those ranges. So, the Ouachita Mountains is the western edge of the end of what occurs throughout Arkansas and the Ouachitas are just the tip of the Appalachian Mountains. So we get a lot of the same species here as you would get, like, in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
C: The Rich Mountain salamander, though, is only found in the Ouachitas. Owen Edwards is a heritage zoologist at the Oklahoma Biological Survey. He says the amphibians are sensitive to environmental changes like temperature and moisture. Watching for population declines could tell us how the region is responding to climate change.
OE: Doing surveys and making these basic discoveries on those habitat requirements can go a really long way with the future of the species, but also the future of a lot of biodiversity that relies on that in the Ouachita Mountains.
C: In the Ouachitas, Donnell with the wildlife department says the Rich Mountain salamander was officially documented in Oklahoma in 1933.
JD: So it's still relatively new to modern man, a new species to us. So it is kind of secretive. So that also kind of makes it a little bit more challenging to keep tabs on it.
C: So secretive in fact, that between the three of us, we only found one.
JD: But you got a good look at it?
JH: Yeah, yeah. He was black with little white spots on him.
C: Just seven were found during the month-long survey. Howell says that’s an uptick from last year.
JH: It's miraculous to me that something that little in this vast of a mountain can survive and thrive and is doing well.
C: She says the survey data will be useful for future generations of Oklahoma scientists. For StateImpact, I’m Chloe Bennett-Steele.
