Groundbreaking partnerships are underway to preserve the endangered Eastern hellbender, the largest amphibian in North America.

Eastern hellbenders have declined dramatically in Ohio and West Virginia over the last three decades.  A statewide effort to reverse this trend is being led by the Ohio Hellbender Partnership, which includes the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, The Wilds, The Ohio State University, other zoos in Ohio, and academic and government organizations.

Both The Wilds and the Columbus Zoo rear young hellbenders from eggs collected in their native range. The team monitors them on-site in a lab until they hatch, hand-rears them until they are ready to release, and tags them for monitoring purposes before they are re-released into their native ranges. 

Accomplishments

• Hellbenders who were raised at The Wilds are released in West Virginia, and hellbenders at the Zoo are translocated to release sites with high quality habitat in Eastern Ohio.
• Over 1900 headstarted hellbenders have been released in Ohio since 2012. 831 of those were reared at the Columbus Zoo.
• During the 2023 field season the team documented reproduction in the wild by hellbenders that had been head-started & released, a significant milestone.
• Results of this incredible work was recently featured in an open-access, peer-reviewed article.