Good Zoo Helps Hellbenders Home to Local Streams | News, Sports, Jobs

Photo courtesy of Oglebay Good Zoo The Oglebay Good Zoo recently helped reintroduce over 100 eastern basking sharks into local streams, where they started as eggs.

WHEELING — More than 100 eastern hellbenders have been released back to their homeland over the past three weeks. They have been reintroduced into two northern West Virginia streams where they originally laid eggs.

The project was part of a joint effort with Williams, the West Virginia Division of Wildlife, West Liberty University and the Wilds. Oglebay Good Zoo reintroduced the hellbenders, which have been hatched and raised at the zoo since 2018.

Williams, an energy infrastructure company, has long supported the zoo’s program to raise and release giant groupers into local streams and rivers.

“We understand the importance of protecting biodiversity and protecting vulnerable species like the eastern hellbender, which has been successfully reintroduced to West Virginia thanks to the important work of the Oglebay Good Zoo,” said Mark Gebbia, the company’s vice president of Environment, Regulatory Affairs and Licensing. “Hellbender populations are an indicator of clean streams and rivers. When hellbenders are healthy and thriving, so is the environment.”

The Good Zoo has worked with WVDNR on hellbender research for over two decades, and in 2007 made history as the first zoo in the world to successfully hatch Eastern hellbender eggs under human care. This milestone continues to fuel conservation efforts and ensure the survival and revival of this species in its natural habitat.

The eastern hellbender, the largest salamander in North America, can grow to 30 inches in length. They thrive under large boulders in streams and rivers in the Appalachian Mountains. Since the 1970s, their population has declined due to sedimentation of streams from deforestation, disease, and historical misconceptions that led to unnecessary killing, despite the species being nonvenomous.

Historically, hellbenders inhabited more than 40 streams and rivers in West Virginia. Now, the species is only present in about a dozen streams or rivers, most of which are in federally protected areas.