The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced earlier this year that it would consider protecting the Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander under the Endangered Species Act. The agency now has 12 months to decide whether to protect the salamander, which lives only in a rapidly developing river gorge southeast of Asheville.
“These salamanders are clinging to survival, and this decision is a good first step toward protecting an important part of North Carolina’s natural heritage,” said Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a press release. “I hope the Fish and Wildlife Service moves quickly to give these remarkable creatures the protections they need. Without quick action, they’ll vanish forever.”
These green-splotched salamanders live only in the Hickory Nut Gorge, a 14-mile-long gorge in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, which is 18 miles south of Asheville and facing rapid development pressure. Scientists estimate there are only a few hundred of them left on Earth, and populations have declined steeply in the past 20 years.