Rescuing LIVE Newts - South section - Tuesday, 02/22/2022
This is LONG, but hopefully interesting!
Conducted survey of the South section in two parts:
Part 1 (solo): 'North stop sign' to 'former pit trap area sign' (7:15 am - 9:00 am)
Part 2 (with Helena Cohen): Aldercroft intersection to former pit trap area sign (9:15 am - 11:00 am)
Rainfall - YES!: (MTD: 0.03" - all from last night; YTD: 0.46"). Data from http://www.weathercat.net/wxraindetail.php
Pavement was wet. Morning weather was 44°F and cloudy when I started, 54°F and RAINING LIGHTLY (!!!) immediately after Helena and I ended.
The observers: Robin and Helena
The non-newts: one pretty moth, and 3-4 un-IDable, wet goo blobs that may have been slugs.
The newts:
LIVE NEWTS! THE NEWTS WERE MOVING ACROSS THE ROAD ALL MORNING, EVEN AS LATE AS 11:00 am. Even in areas we had cleared, new live ones would emerge from the bushes onto the road. In addition to two injured, near-death newts, I recorded 12 live, healthy, adult newts on the road, all escorted to safety, and Helena had eight, for a total of 20 live newts saved.
One local resident, in her car, stopped to tell me that she had pulled over multiple times to rescue more live newts from the road but felt guilty she couldn't save one newt, because there wasn't a safe place to stop near it. One pedestrian said he had moved a few on the North side of Alma Bridge Road. Another pedestrian asked what side he should carry them to at this time of year. I love that so many of the people we met were aware of the problem and willing to do something.
Videos: yes, plenty. I filmed one newt crossing the road from start to finish; it took over seven minutes. Another did it in about four minutes, with a vehicle passing by it/me on the road. Also other videos that may be useful for outreach.
Dead newts: 97 adult plus 1 juvenile, nearly all very fresh. I'm surprised by this low number.
There was unusual human activity: COUNTY ROADS doing maintenance.
Vehicles: 37, comprised of 22 passing vehicles and a large crew of ~15 County Roads employees with 15 trucks and heavy machinery involved in clearing foliage from the sides of the road near Soda Spring Canyon for fire safety. "Fire safety is more important than preventing erosion." They had that huge grinding tractor-mower thing going, so don't expect roadside wildflowers for a long while. I imagine it grinds up newts too. On the plus side, many of the crew seemed to know what I was doing already; they asked a few questions, and even pointed out a few dead newts near them to me. One guy said they would not be repaving Alma Bridge Road this year; they'll be working on the other side of Hwy 17.
Bikes: 5
Pedestrians: 3
If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
Please sign up for next week since Merav is not available!
:-)
Usá ArgentiNat con app iNaturalist
Comentarios
@anudibranchmom, I read all your field notes and those of all other team members, too. Thanks for including so much detail. I'm so happy you were able to rescue so many newts. But it's breaking my heart that so many more newts are found dead this year compared with previous years.
Regarding the low death count... It's probably due to low overnight temps. In my analysis of 4 years of data, I found that the only time the number of dead drop this low during the migration is when the overnight temps drop below about 40 degrees F. Ground temps tend to be lower than air temps, so it very well could be freezing on the ground when the air temp is higher than 32 degrees F. I wrote about this in my 4-year report.
Thanks for taking videos. They are very impactful. The video that @karangattu made of the little newt walking slowly in the foreground while traffic zipped by in the background will be vivid in my mind forever.
What a morning! And how nice to be able to escort live newts. Even better that locals were aware and helping - there is (maybe, kinda sorta) hope!
Agregar un comentario