Saving an Oregon native: the plight of the Mazama Newt

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KLCC Studios,

this is

Oregon on the Record.

I'm Michael Dunn. The Oregon Zoo isn't just a place to view exotic animals, it's an active research and conservation center. Crater Lake isn't just one of the most picturesque places in the world, it's a vibrant and unique ecosystem unlike most other places on the planet. So what do these two things have in common? Well, the Oregon Zoo is working feverishly to try and save a species of newt that only exists at Crater Lake and no place else. Today on the show, you'll meet a top biologist at the zoo who, along with her team, have set up a lab at the zoo to mimic Crater Lake's unique environment, all in service to save the incredibly rare Mazama newt. Then, at the end of the show, you'll hear why a longstanding crime prevention organization in Oregon, Crime Stoppers, has had to close its doors. The Mazama Newt is a small amphibian that lives nowhere else on Earth except Oregon's only national park, Crater Lake. And it's going extinct. Now, with so many problems the world faces today, it may not seem like a big deal to lose a tiny creature like this newt. But as my guest today explains, the plight of the newt is a harbinger of continuing environmental collapse. Julia Lowe, Conservation Propagation Specialist with the Oregon Zoo. Julia, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah. Well, let's start with this. Tell us about the Mazama newt and what makes it special.

The Mazama newt is a subspecies of the more commonly known roughskin newt. They are found nowhere else on the planet except for Crater Lake. National Park. They are found only in the water or within the caldera of the National Park. So not the park itself, but actually in the caldera.

Wow. Okay. So what's the outlook for the newts right now in Crater Lake?

Currently the outlook for the newts in Crater Lake isn't looking so great. They have done an annual snorkel survey study in the lake for about 20 years and they have very specific sites that they snorkel and they within arm's reach remove rocks and they look for the newts. They've noticed a significant decline over the last 10 to 15 years. And as of this summer, there were no newts found at this survey.

Wow. So what are the reasons? What do we believe is happening to the Mazama newt?

So about a hundred years ago, they introduced several different species of fish to Crater Lake that were not there. And then to feed them, they had to introduce the signal crayfish. the signal crayfish is taking over the lake. It is consuming all of the benthic invertebrates. It is consuming the Mazama newts. Um, basically they will feed on anything that they can catch or that like happens to reach their mouth. They are also in, have an ability to explode in numbers that become significant, um, to where no other life can occupy the same space as the crayfish. So what they've noticed through these surveys is that wherever there are signal crayfish, there is a reduced number of foods that the Mazama Newt would eat, like these snails, amphipods, mosquito larvae, things, you know, invertebrates that would be in the water. And also wherever there are crayfish, there are no Mazama Newts.