North Section, February 2, 2024
Friday February 2, 2024
Time: 9:15 am - 11 am
Weather: Cool, scattered clouds, light rains with a few showers
Terry and Monica walked the north section of Alma Bridge Road, from Lexington Reservoir County Park parking lot to the first stop sign: 46 dead newts, other roadkill included millipedes and earthworms.
Terry's observations: 21 dead adult newts, no juveniles. no live newts, 1 millipede
Monica's observations: 25 dead newts, 1 juvenile
Traffic - 3 Pickup trucks, 11 trucks, 3 parked cars, 13 cars, 0 pedestrians, 0 bicyclists.
Terry's observations from the day: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2024-02-02&place_id=any&subview=map&user_id=teellbee&verifiable=any
Monica's observations from the day: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2024-02-02&place_id=any&subview=map&user_id=monicarichards&verifiable=any
תגובות
Unbelievable low numbers for this rainy day in the middle of the season. So sad to see; thanks to all of you for continuing to document this.
Yes, very concerning... still, as an untrained, and undereducated naturalist, I wonder (hope) if survivors from previous years learned to use the existing culverts and under-road drainage systems as their preferred migration routes? I have no idea how closely newts might retrace routes established by the successful migration from prior years. I suppose, only further study over time may give us some answers.
@teellbee, the newts might be using the two large cement culverts, but I don't think they're using the smaller ones that were built for water drainage. As someone pointed out to me, there's as much as a 10 ft. drop for some of them, so even if the newts use them to get to the reservoir, there's no way they could use them on the climb up the hill to the forest.
The low numbers look very bad for this population. Folks at UC Davis Road Ecology Center are analyzing our data to see if they can scientifically state that the population is dying.
See the chart below to compare this season's roadkill with previous seasons:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/pacific-newt-roadkill-main-project-lexington-reservoir/journal/89100-pacific-newt-mortality-at-lexington-reservoir-january-2024
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