Why a tiny salamander is shutting down a Burlington road
City officials and Conservation Halton team up for the annual spring tradition of protecting a rare species as it moves to its breeding ponds along the Niagara Escarpment.
It may sound unusual, but every year since 2012, King Road has been closed to traffic to provide a safe passage for the endangered Jefferson salamander, a joint effort by the City of Burlington and Conservation Halton.
From March 11 until April 8, King Road, from North Service Road to Granite Ridge Trail in Hamilton will be closed “to allow the ‘Jeffies’ to cross the road safely in their search to find a mate,” and re-open on April 9, “when the salamanders are predicted to finish their annual crossing,” according to a release from the City.
“Each year, the return of the Jefferson salamanders is one of Burlington’s most meaningful signs of spring,” Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward said in the same release.
Those signs of spring are warming temperatures, as the migration and road closures are “dictated by the weather” and “because it’s the spring, it’s their time to start breeding and looking for their ponds,” explained Siobhán Ewert, lead monitoring technician with Conservation Halton.
The salamanders are quite committed to their breeding ponds, “They have kind of like an internal GPS,” Ewert said. “They return to the exact same pond that they were born in to start that next generation, so they are very tied to that.”
The ‘Jeffies’ are a type of “mole salamander species,” she explained, which, as the name may suggest, means they burrow underground. “They’re in through all the crevices and rock formations of the ground, and in the springtime they emerge,” she added.
Because King Road sits directly between their underground wintering areas and those ponds, “it acts as like a safety bridge” when it’s closed, Ewert said.
The Niagara Escarpment, which runs through Halton Region, creates the rocky habitat that the salamanders rely on. That’s also one reason “we can't easily build tunnels” for the salamanders, she said.
The salamanders also play an important ecological role through a process known as nutrient cycling. Because they live both in water and on land during their life cycle, the salamanders help move nutrients from ponds into surrounding forests, acting as a natural fertilizer in woodland ecosystems, according to Ewert.
“They eat a large amount of mosquito larvae when they’re young, which naturally keeps the bug population in check,” she added.
Jefferson salamanders are brown or grey-coloured on their backs, flecked with blue along their sides and can be anywhere from 12 to 20 cm in length, with long tails that make up half of that length.
According to Ontario Nature, they breed in swamps, ponds, marshes, or even roadside ditches, overwintering underground in forests. Females can lay up to 300 eggs in small clumps attached to underwater plants, and the eggs hatch in three to four weeks, with larvae transforming into adults by late summer. They state that “Jefferson salamanders are also killed on roads every spring during their migration to breeding ponds,” highlighting why the road closure is necessary.
Unlike most smaller animals, which tend to have shorter lifespans, the Jefferson salamander can live up to 30 years.
“We are pleased to share that since the first King Road closure in 2012, we have observed no Jefferson salamander road mortality in that area during the migration period,” said former Conservation Halton president and CEO Hassaan Basit in a 2022 press release, highlighting the impact the road closure has had on protecting the endangered species.
The Jefferson salamander was added to Ontario’s endangered species list in 2011, and since 2012, the City has worked with Conservation Halton to protect the species.
While many conservation efforts require active volunteering, protecting this species during migration is surprisingly passive.
“By staying home, that's the most that people can do to protect the Jefferson salamander and stay off the roads, just so that they can make their journey to their pond safely,” Ewert said.
She also explained that people should avoid touching the animals if they encounter them, because chemicals on their hands can be absorbed through the salamanders’ skin. Products such as bug spray, hand sanitizer and skin creams can harm them.
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