Junior Emma Paton spent her summer tracking endangered salamanders in New Mexico as part of her fellowship program. Photo by Grace DeSanti.
After searching for hours under logs and rocks for the endangered Jemez Mountains salamander, Emma Paton, a junior wildlife and conservation biology major, flipped over one last cover object to find her first endangered amphibian.
Paton journeyed to New Mexico for the summer to track the endangered species, as a part of the coastal environmental fellowship program at the University of Rhode Island.During this period of research, she said that only 24 Jemez Mountains salamanders were found.
The Jemez Mountains salamander is an endangered species located in north-central New Mexico. The species are dark brown and grey with gold speckling on their backs and can breathe through their skin, according to Paton.
The study of these salamanders by the group of researchers that Paton joined for the summer, led by Dr. Nancy Karraker, tracked the salamanders from the beginning of June to the end of August. Part of this research helped to document when the salamanders would be below ground so that authorities know when to do prescribed burning that will not harm the endangered population.
To tell when the salamanders would be below ground, Paton said that the researchers would do “pit-tagging” to detect salamanders that were up to 30-centimeters underground. This process of pit-tagging consisted of inserting the pit-tag, which is the size of a grain of rice, into some of the salamanders that were found so that the device can be detected in the salamanders to locate them.
Historically, logging and fires have been the reason for the endangerment of the salamanders because of habitat destruction, according to Paton.
Researchers also swabbed the salamanders for diseases such as “chytrid fungus.” This is a disease found in amphibians around the world that eats away at keratin on the organisms infected. Keratin is found on the ventral surfaces of these amphibians and is detrimental to their survival, as areas where the keratin is found also allow for respiration.
This fungus was only found in a couple of the salamanders during their research, according to Paton, so it cannot be determined if it has harmed the population of Jemez Mountains salamanders.
Chytrid fungus is also found mostly in aquatic environments, so the group was trying to research how it had gotten to the forested high elevation that the salamanders could be found.
Paton was introduced to wildlife fieldwork at a young age. She would join her parents, her father, a URI professor in natural resources science, and her mother, a biologist, in the field.
“When I was younger, my dad always banded owls at our house and I just thought that was a normal thing,” Paton said.
Different species of spotted owls are Paton’s most desired group to study. After being exposed to species of owls at a young age from her father’s fieldwork, Paton said that the species were “really fascinating” to her.
Both birds and amphibians are Paton’s “two loves” in the world of wildlife biology.
Paton said that it was inevitable for her to be interested in the outdoors and conservation and has always known that she interested in working outside in the environment.
“Getting the exposure at such a young age, I think, really made a difference,” said Paton.
Samuel Adesemolu, a senior wildlife and conservation biology major, said that Paton was helpful and taught him new things, such as new camping techniques and finding edible plants, during their time in New Mexico.
During high school, Paton had her first fieldwork experiences outside of her childhood expeditions with her parents off of the coast of Great Gull Island.
She accredits this hands-on experience in making her “fall in love” with the fieldwork.
Paton also traveled to Costa Rica to work with the Ara Project during the gap year that she took between high school and college to travel. Once experiencing these hands-on professional experiences, she realized that wildlife and conservation biology was a profession she was interested in beyond just her childhood.
Paton advised those interested in the field of wildlife to get out in the field, even if it starts as volunteering because there are “so many opportunities.”