Each year when rain starts to fall in the Bay Area, a little-noticed but amazing thing happens. Newts—tiny lizard-looking amphibians—emerge from their burrows under the ground and begin to journey to their mating ponds. The slender creatures need moist air to survive the mini migration and are known to come out in droves when the weather is just right.
I had been keeping an eye on the forecast last week when I spotted what I wanted—lots of rain, the right temperature, I knew it was the best shot I’d get—it was time to go find some newts.
Headlamp ready and wearing rain gear, I drove the pitch-black road up to Tilden Park in Berkeley at 6 p.m. When I stepped out of my car, the quiet darkness surrounded me. Albeit a little spooky, I was relieved when I spotted my guide for the evening, Tiffany Yap, walking towards me.
Yap is an ecologist and herpetologist for the Center for Biological Diversity, and an all-around newt fan—she once made a video about the tiny animals set to the tune of “Dynamite” by Korean boyband BTS.
To make sure we didn’t step on any newts on our excursion, she advised me to walk very slowly as we made our way to South Park Drive, which has been closed for several months out of the year since the early 1990s to protect newts. And they need protection: when they’re journeying from their burrows to ponds and other bodies of water to mate, they frequently have to cross roads, and they’re often run over by cars and bicycles or stepped on by people not closely paying attention to what’s underfoot.
As we walked, I didn’t entirely know what I was looking for. I had seen photos of California newts, the most common newt in the Bay Area, but spotting them at night seemed impossible. Just a few inches long, their soft yet bumpy skin blends right into the asphalt. Their distinctive, bright red underbellies are mostly hidden.
However, my doubts we would spot them quickly disappeared when just minutes into our walk I heard Yap exclaim, “Look, there’s one!”
The first of many that night, a small—shockingly cute—amphibian was frozen in the beam of Yap’s flashlight. Once I saw this newt it was like a veil over my eyes was lifted. I couldn’t walk more than a few feet without catching a wiggly newt in my sightline. After just a couple of hours we had spotted over 40 newts. And it turned out we weren’t the only ones looking.
There’s a dedicated community of people in the Bay Area, and all over the world, who love newts. As we walked through Tilden, we randomly met a mother and her son who were also out “newting.” A bicyclist stopped us to excitedly ask what we were doing. Yap also shared that one evening when she was out in the park she met a woman who was celebrating her 50th birthday by looking for newts.
Over the last several years, groups have cropped up to protect the newts during their vulnerable journeys across roads and paths. And the road in Tilden Park is an example of what many newt advocates across the Bay Area would like to see in their towns. Starting in 1993, after community members demanded protection for the newts, the road has been closed for 5 months out of the year to help the little amphibians. While South Park Road is now a haven for newt lovers, and a longstanding sanctuary for the small animals, it is also, unfortunately, a rarity.
Newts make the yearly journey to the same ponds in which they were born. However, these waters can often be located across prominent roadways and other man-made obstacles. When the small animals head out on the black, wet pavement, they are nearly invisible to cars. As I walked the road in Tilden last week, I realized how impossible it would be to avoid running them over even if you could spot them. Additionally, if the conditions are right, hundreds of newts can attempt to cross a road in a single evening. With the cars on the road having no way of avoiding them, the newts are killed en masse.
While this is not only a concern for those worried about road mortality of animals in general, it is also a concern for those looking at the health and safety of a key California species.
What are newts, and why are they important?
Newts, a member of the Salamander family, come in different sizes, textures, and colors. The most prominent in the Bay Area is the aptly named California newt. They can be found locally throughout the East Bay Regional Park District, including Sibley Regional Park and Reinhardt Regional Redwood Preserve.
California newts are usually around three inches long with dark brown backs and bright red or orange bellies. The color of their stomachs indicates to predators that they are poisonous. Endemic to California, the California newt is listed by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife as Species of Special Concern due to threats like habitat loss, competition and predation by introduced species, sedimentation in their breeding ponds—and an especially big killer, road mortality.
Newts live most of their lives under the ground, buried in the dirt until the first inch of rain falls. Typically lasting from November to March, they emerge when the temperature is around 55 degrees Fahrenheit and it’s raining. Sometimes the small animals have to walk a couple of miles to get back to the water. They also wander to find food, and baby newts trek their way out of ponds to their future homes in the soil. In their wanderings, they’re exposed to vehicle traffic on roads that have sliced up their habitats.
Newts and other salamanders are vital for ecosystem health. They typically eat mosquitos and other insects. They are also what is known as an indicator species, an organism whose presence and health give clues to the overall health of a given environment. Salamanders’ permeable skins are especially sensitive to toxins and thus can help scientists understand threats like pollution.
Helping newts cross the road
In 2019, Sally Gale was driving home on Chileno Valley Road in west Sonoma County with her husband after a nice evening out when she spotted a newt in the road. She stopped, hopped out of the car, and went to help the little creature get out of harm’s way, but she quickly noticed other newts. She ended up walking over a mile in her nice shoes to pick up newts that night. Unfortunately, 45 of the 50 she found were dead, already crushed by car tires. Seeing all these dead newts sparked a fire in Gale.
“At the end of the walk, I just said to myself, ‘This cannot continue, this is not right,’” said Gale. “For me, it was unacceptable. It wasn’t right that these small animals, defenseless, slow, soft animals, who are doing their normal thing that they’ve been doing for hundreds and thousands of years, probably, you know, were getting run over by cars that people were driving without really realizing that they were even on the ground. I just thought you know ‘this is wrong and I’m gonna do something about it, darn it!’”
Gale started The Chileno Valley Newt Brigade, a group dedicated to helping newts cross the road safely. Almost five years later, the Brigade is now a group of around 80 volunteers. The team works nightly on the same road in Petaluma for five months out of the year to shepard newts to safety. They trek out with high-visibility vests and buckets to pick up as many newts as they can in the span of two hours, sometimes much longer.
The newts travel in both directions along the road, so the volunteers keep track of which direction they’re going and transport them quickly across. They also track their numbers and size to contribute to the iNaturalist database.
The work is not without its risks. Brigade members walk an unlit road in the middle of the night. For a short period of time, Gale said, they set up official newt crossing signs, but they were quickly stolen. Now the group chains up their own signs every night and takes them when they leave.
If a car comes down the road, there’s nothing much that can be done. The group focuses on their own safety first, quickly moving off the roadway. After a car passes, they count the dead newts. However, the Newt Brigade is able to save the vast majority of the newts they find. Gale said that although some folks speed on the road, many have stopped to inquire and even help them.
“I’d say 99% of the motorists are supportive,” said Gale. “They encourage us. They ask how many newts we’ve gotten. They slow down, they don’t stop. There’s a milk truck that goes through twice. He either honks or he’s even stopped and helped us pick up newts. So in general, we’ve had really good support.”
For Gale and her team, the cause is worth the time, energy, and risks.
“For those of us who see the natural world as part of our community, as part of our family in a way, you know, it just makes sense that you want to protect and nurture these defenseless, and very interesting little animals,” said Gale.
Other newts aren’t so lucky
On some Bay Area roads, shepherding newts across the asphalt just isn’t possible.
The Lexington Reservoir Newt Patrol has been documenting newt road mortality for the last six years. The patrol focuses on Alma Bridge Road south of Los Gatos. They head out weekly with the solemn task of cataloging every dead newt they encounter. The road they work on is busy, dark, and very dangerous.
“We rarely see live newts on our road, unfortunately,” said Merav Vonshak, an ecologist and faculty member at San Jose State University, “I’ve already documented 15,800 newts, including a few live ones, and most of them are dead.”
For the patrol, it is simply impossible to safely take to the road at night and try and help newts across. Instead, they take a different approach: vigilant documentation.
They’re a small team, averaging around 20 to 30 volunteers. When they go out once a week, they measure, photograph, and document every newt they encounter on the road. They then take their data and upload it to their iNaturalist Project site. Vonshak notes the importance of taking a photo of each dead newt. Not only does it provide proof in their data, it shows the reality of what these newts are facing.
Counting the sheer number of dead animals that the group finds is heartbreaking. Vonshak said they would ideally have more volunteers, but getting people to sign up has been challenging. The work they do doesn’t have the same appeal as getting to help the newts cross safely, but Vonshak said it’s just as important.
“I think that if we stop now, nothing will change,” said Vonshak. “And just thinking about all these dead newts on the road, I’d rather just go out there and continue documenting them, because I think you cannot argue with data.”
In the documentation period between 2020 and 2021, researchers found that 40% of the newt population around Alma Bridge Road was killed. This shocking mortality data that the group is collecting is being used to show the severity of the problem.
Using the data they’ve collected, they’ve appealed to the state to start implementing a wildlife crossing—structures designed to help animals cross over, under or around, roads. A team of experts was formed, which Vonshak was a part of, to look at several types of solutions for safe newt passages. This is indicative of a statewide trend toward protecting animals on the road.
While wildlife crossings were slow to appear in California, lawmakers recently approved an almost $1 billion grant to be allocated to wildlife crossings and fencing across the state.
As the plans and funding for the newts passage project progress, Vonshak hopes that they can implement them soon. Most roads cannot be closed for long periods of time like South Park Drive in Tilden, but Yap and others said that it does serve as an example of what can be achieved with community input.
As groups continue to work swiftly on plans for wildlife crossings and other mitigation efforts, the patrol and the brigade will continue their work to try and help, document, and advocate for as many newts as they can before it is too late.
“If you don’t do something soon, it’ll be a waste of time because the newts won’t be there,” said Vonshak.
