'Reveal' journalist goes into the waters of Appalachia to assess damage to hellbender ecosystems

Helene’s wrath across the Appalachians moved boulders and left debris in waterways important to the region’s sensitive ecosystems.

Jackie Flynn Mogensen is a journalist with the Center for Investigative Reporting, which produces Reveal and publishes Mother Jones magazine. Last month she wrote a story headlined “Anatomy of an Extinction.” It’s about the damage from the storm in Southwest Virginia. She looked primarily at the threat to the giant salamander known as the hellbender.

Mogensen spoke with WFDD about her story. 

Interview highlights:

On how the species serves as a bellwether for the overall mountain ecosystem

The hellbender specifically is known as kind of a classic indicator species. It's a term that scientists use to mean they are an indicator for the health of the wider ecosystem. They're sort of like a pulse check, essentially. If you wanted to check, like, how polluted is this stream? Is it healthy? Are there hellbenders in there? And if there are, that's a pretty good sign. What I learned from the biologists is that the fate of the hellbender salamander is tied to ours because they are this sort of pulse check on the health of ecosystems. 

On the title, "Anatomy of an Extinction"

This is how extinctions happened. There is a species like the eastern hellbender that is already declining. Scientists estimate that from the 626 documented populations of this species (there are) 371 left, and those remaining are in decline. All that data was collected before Helene, When you have a species that's already kind of teetering on the brink of extinction and you have a storm like Helene come through, it can really be disastrous for species like that. 

On what the change of administrations from Biden to Trump could mean for the hellbender

A lot of the policy changes will have an impact on the hellbenders' existence. Maybe not directly yet. But, for instance, staff that have been cut at Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or National Park Service. All these places — all these staff — have programs and directives in place to help support endangered and threatened species. 

On what people in the region can do to help protect the aquatic wildlife

The first thing I would do is look to see what type of endangered and threatened wildlife is in your county. I know the Center for Biological Diversity has a searchable map where you can put in your ZIP code or address and see the species near you, and then look up what might be beneficial. So, for instance, like for a monarch butterfly, maybe you would want to plant milkweed in your garden.

What Lori Williams, the biologist at the North Carolina State Wildlife office, said is, we need people to help with spotting hellbenders more than ever, in documenting them, reporting sightings as much as possible. So if you see a hellbender, please report it to the wildlife office near you, with the date, your name, where it is, as specific as possible. The wildlife helpline in North Carolina is 866-318-2401, and that's the best way to help with this effort.