The California Tiger Salamander- Claire Swart

California Tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense)

Photo Credit: John Cleckler, Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office

What is the California Tiger Salamander?

The California Tiger Salamander is an amphibian in the family Ambystromatidae. They are quite large with a rounded nose and have small eyes that protrude out from its head. They also always look like their smiling 😊.  This salamander gets its name from the white or yellow spots or stripes that appear on its back giving it the appearance of tiger stripes. Their diet consists mostly of insects and larvae from ponds and vernal pools. Often males can grow up to 20 cm long and females can grow up to 17 cm. That’s pretty big for a salamander! Their mating season begins in November and the salamanders can sometimes travel up to a mile to reach pools to mate. The typical salamander reaches sexual maturity at four to five years old and can live up to ten years. Reaching sexual maturity so late has been detrimental to the survival of the salamander because they are often killed before they reach this point in their life cycle and they typically only reproduce once in their life time.

 Sonoma County Vernal Pools

Photo Credit: Sonoma County Regional Parks

The Salamander Habitat

The California Tiger Salamander has a limited habitat to grasslands and low foothills with pools or ponds that are vital for breeding. They often rely on vernal pools which are becoming rarer and contributes to the steady decline of the species. But most days they spend “in the land” meaning they burrow underground for safety and to stay cool. Its main predators are birds, fish, and bullfrogs which also live in their habitat. All Central California salamanders have been granted critical habitat status, and the Sonoma population is on its way toward habitat protections.

Photo Credit: Center for Biological Diversity, Photo © Frank Schleicher.

Hibernation

Though Tiger Salamanders are burrowers they are not physically equipped to make their own burrows and thus must rely on the burrows of other animals such as ground squirrels. In these burrows salamanders go into hibernation during the dry months and come out of these burrows somewhere around November to mate.

Listing Date

The California Tiger Salamander was put on the endangered list in Santa Barbra County in January of 2000 and in Sonoma County in 2002. In 2004 it was placed on the Threatened list for all Central California.

Cause of Listing and Main Threats

Habitat loss and fragmentation is the most important reason as to why this salamander has become endangered. Fragmentation from urbanization and farming land restricts migration between aquatic breeding sites and their upland non-breeding habitat, along with dispersal among aquatic breeding sites. Vehicles such as cars and off-road bikes also pose a huge threat and increase mortality rates for the California Tiger Salamander.

This is followed by the reduction of ground squirrel populations by rodent control programs which reduces burrows for the salamander to burrow in during the hibernation period. Without burrows to hibernate in during the dry summers salamanders will overheat and die.

Another threat to the salamander is a deformity-causing infection, possibly caused by a parasite in the presence of other factors, it also has affected pond-breeding amphibians at known California Tiger Salamander breeding sites.

Use of Pesticides and its Overlapping Regions With California Tiger Salamanders

Photo Credit: Center for Biological Diversity

Salamanders and other related amphibians are very susceptible to poisoning by pesticides because of its semi-permeable skin. The toxins more often cause all sorts of issues including deformations, illness, and high mortality rates.

Recovery Plan

The species recovery plan for the California Tiger Salamander is to preserve high-quality habitats that provide essential connectivity, reduces fragmentation, and sufficiently buffers against encroaching development. Management of these preserved areas provide additional protection to the habitat and address non-habitat related threats. Habitat restoration is necessary to provide additional populations to protect unique genetic diversity.

The estimated cost of recovery is $379,608,000 and date of full recovery is estimated to be 2065.

What Can You Do?

There are many things that you can do to help! Visit: 

https://www.fws.gov/sacramento/es_species/Accounts/Amphibians-Reptiles/Documents/What_You_Can_Do.pdf.

Here you can learn about how to protect and conserve wildlife as provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They list ways to help the environment from your home, in your community, in your classroom, and many more ways. The first step to helping is understanding and this is a great way to get to know the environment around you and how important it is to protect and maintain it.

Created By: Claire Swart


Sources:

Davison, Veronica. “California Tiger Salamander - Amphibians and Reptiles, Endangered Species Accounts | Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office.” Sacramento Fish and Wildlife, 6 Dec. 2017, www.fws.gov/sacramento/es_species/Accounts/Amphibians-Reptiles/ca_tiger_salamander/.

Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife. “California tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense).” Species Profile for California tiger Salamander (Ambystoma californiense), ecos.fws.gov/ecp0/profile/speciesProfile?spcode=D01T#crithab.

Center for Biological Diversity. “Saving the California Tiger Salamander.” California tiger salamander, www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/amphibians/California_tiger_salamander/index.html.

Center for Biological Diversity. “Pesticide Applications Detrimental to the California Tiger Salamander.” Pesticide applications detrimental to the California tiger salamander, www.biologicaldiversity.org/publications/maps/highlighted_maps/California_tiger_salamander_pesticides.html.

Sonoma County Regional Parks. “REGIONAL PARKS.” Vernal Pool Botany | Sonoma County Regional Parks, 25 Mar. 2017, parks.sonomacounty.ca.gov/_templates_parks/EventDetail.aspx?id=2147530342.