Salamander House Contest To Aid Amphibian Studies - contest to select a housing design that will enable experts to study salamanders to determine the cause of their decreased numbers - Brief Article

National Wildlife, August-Sept, 1999

Think you can design a house a salamander might want to move into? Send it in, maybe win some cash and help scientists study the causes of amphibian declines at the same time.

NWF, in conjunction with amphibian experts at the U.S. Geological Survey and the Thousand Friends of Frogs program at Minnesota's Hamline University, has launched a two-year contest to develop small structures that can be placed in or near streams to attract declining salamander species. The grand-prize winner, chosen after field testing of designs by U.S. Geological Survey scientists, will receive a $2,500 prize.

Why do salamanders need houses after surviving millions of years without them? They don't, but scientists do, explains Craig Tufts, NWF's chief naturalist. 'Basically, we are using people's ingenuity to design structures that will attract salamanders, so that scientists studying causes of amphibian declines can find and monitor the salamanders without disturbing other natural habitat.' For contest details, check the web site www.mp1-pwrc. usgs.gov/streamsally or write Sam Droege, Patuxent Wild-life Research Center, 12100 Beech Forest Drive, Laurel, Maryland 20708-4038.