Salamander Survey

We are volunteering to be a part of the Wisconsin Salamander Survey this year. This survey serves to document the presence or absence of different varieties of salamanders, and provides some good baseline data to natural resource managers in the area.

There is a short window of salamander migration to ponds for breeding in April for our area. We haven't seen the rains usually associated with this migration yet so it is a little iffy as to whether or not we will get good results right now. It is however the typical time for salamanders to be on the move, so we're going for it!

We made a set of five funnel traps to set out (conveniently) on our own pond for five consecutive days. The funnel traps are made from light screening that we stapled together. Very simple.


We are on the late end of setting our traps out because our pond still had ice at the perimeter every morning until just a day ago which is not conducive to salamander migration. When we check our traps we'll record the number and type of salamanders we have observed. We'll also record various bits of data about pond temperature and the daily high and low temps for our area.

We'll be setting our traps out later this morning and I will be sure to post again about any findings in the next few days. I love this kind of real life opportunity for the kids to be scientists!