Gov. Tom Wolf, dressed in a blue "Hellbender Defender" T-shirt, signed a bill designating the Eastern hellbender as Pennsylvania's official state amphibian on April 23.
Since 2016, Chesapeake Bay Foundation's (CBF) Student Leadership Council (SLC) members have spearheaded the campaign to recognize the Eastern hellbender and create greater awareness of the need to reduce pollution in Pennsylvania's rivers and streams.
Hellbenders are an indicator species for clean water. They survive where there is cold, clear, swift-running water.
Students studied hellbenders extensively, installed nesting boxes in several Pennsylvania streams, and wrote the first draft of a bill that was sponsored by state Sen. Gene Yaw and passed the Senate last year. The bill did not pass the House before the session ended, however.
When the new session began in January, Yaw reintroduced the effort as Senate Bill 9, which was signed into law by Wolf. The bill was passed by the Senate and House on Feb. 4 and April 16, respectively.
Hellbenders prefer rocky streambeds. Their spongelike bodies allow them to squeeze into crevices, which they use for protection and for nesting. Folds of wrinkled skin provide a large surface through which they draw most of their oxygen.
A lack of streamside trees along the commonwealth waterways allows waters to warm, polluted runoff to enter rivers and streams, and silt to build up in streambeds. As a result, habitat for hellbenders has been degraded and hellbender numbers have decreased in streams where they were plentiful as recently as 1990.
The students' hellbender campaign garnered local, state, and national attention, making it onto the front page of the Wall Street Journal and as the subject of the iconic Mark Trail Sunday comic strip. A radio station in Canada interviewed SLC president Emma Stone.
CBF's Student Leadership Program is open to high school students and is designed to give them a voice and an active role in clean water efforts in Pennsylvania.
For more information about the campaign, readers may visit http://www.cbf.org/hellbender.
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