Students work with Matt Kaunert in creating hellbender nest boxes earlier this summer.
the Eastern hellbender in the western half of Pennsylvania and the numerous issues the species – our state’s largest salamander – faces. “I was always interested in reptiles and amphibians – they are much more mysterious and rarely seen than fish or deer,” he said. “I was reading old field manuals and I came across information about the hellbender in them, and I became aware that there is this giant salamander in our waterways and it blew my mind. “It’s this ancient sort of thing like out of a folk tale or a monster movie that initially drew me in. But then I learned a little bit more – that they’re so poorly understood. I know people that own property with really good hellbender habitat that don’t even know they exist. Coincidentally, growing up, some of the streams I played in as a boy had some of the healthiest populations range-wide, so all that kind of came together and put me on the ground floor of a unique conservation challenge at a young age.” Unfortunately, too many people think that hellbenders are poisonous or deplete
natural trout hatcheries, “and none of that is true,” Kaunert said. “They are harmless to humans. They are very seldom seen. They are an ancient component of these Appala - chian stream systems that have been around for millions of years and kind of operate like a mesopredator near the top of the food chain, eating a lot of crayfish and are an integral part of the ecosystem.” He said that too many people ask what hellbenders do for the ecosystem. “The real question is what they reveal about the ecosystem – that’s really what’s important,” Kaunert said. “If you have a real - ly dense reproductively active group of hell - benders, that’s a really good sign that things are going well in your waterway.” A thousand cuts Hellbenders, as a species, have experi - enced a dramatic decline due to a number of factors, according to Kaunert, including the fact that they live under large rocks – sometimes as big as the hood of a car – in the benthic zone of clean streams.
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