More hellbenders released into Tennessee rivers
LEWIS COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — More hellbenders have been let loose in Middle Tennessee.
In what's become an annual tradition, the Nashville Zoo and their partners, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and Tennessee State University, released more of the giant salamanders into the Duck River watershed on Tuesday.
It's an all-day, full-team effort, but Tennessee now has 11 more hellbenders in its waterways, with six more joining them on Wednesday.
Nashville Zoo welcomes red river hog piglet
In 2024, the group brought 27 hellbenders into river streams. They've now released over 100 in total.
'We are finding resident hellbenders, which are the ones that actually have grown in the wild. So that's very exciting,' said Pia Sandonato, a conservationist with the Nashville Zoo.
While considered endangered, Tennessee Hellbenders are still not a federally-protected species. The hellbenders released by the zoo can and will be tracked.
'You can say they're kind of like your babies, so it's nice to see your children going out finally where they belong and actually doing good,' said Sandonato. 'They're key components of aquatic ecosystems that they inhabit. They act as predators and also as prey in their ecosystems, so they actually help balance aquatic life.'
Inside hellbender salamander transmitter surgery at the Nashville Zoo
Hellbenders have to be in cool, clear, swift-moving streams with plenty of rocks to live and hide under.
To diversify their population, the zoo and its partners change where they release the hellbenders and have begun finding more of the 'resident' hellbenders in our waterways.
This was the fifth year the zoo and its partners have done this mass release. Sandonato hopes within another 10 years or more, they won't need to do this anymore because Hellbenders will be completely self-sustained in nature.
⏩ Read today's top stories on wkrn.com
According to the zoo, the biggest hurdle they're facing with their hellbender program is trying to figure out why they don't see many eggs or larvae in the wild.
'We have a higher age class of older hellbenders in the wild, which is what we're noticing now. and is the reason why we keep this project ongoing,' Sandonato explained.
Including babies, the Nashville Zoo has about 100 more Hellbenders that they're raising and waiting to release in the years ahead.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRN News 2.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
National Hurricane Center has made changes to forecasting – What you need to know
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1st, and since last season, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced that they made some changes to their forecasting. The National Hurricane Center has made several updates to its forecast protocol and graphics in order to improve messaging, accuracy, and more advanced warning. According to the National Hurricane Center, the cone of uncertainty will be 3-5% smaller than in years past. This will better pinpoint where the hurricane will go. The cone of uncertainty, also called the potential track area, is the forecast of where the center of the storm will be in the next five days. 2025 Atlantic hurricane season is expected to be busy: How that could impact Tennessee They will continue to make the experimental forecast graphic that includes inland tropical alerts. Tropical Storm watches and warnings, along with Hurricane watches and warnings, are overlaid on top of the cone of uncertainty. This makes it easier to see the scope of the impacts the wind will have on inland areas. Here's a comparison of the old look and the experimental look. Along with the addition of the inland watches and warnings, they also made some slight changes to the cone of uncertainty. The old way drew the cone of uncertainty with a different pattern for forecast days 4 and 5. Now, the 5-day forecast cone of uncertainty will look the same throughout. Continuing with the theme of improved forecast accuracy, the National Hurricane Center will issue alerts and forecast cones earlier for storms that have yet to form. This means the NHC will have the ability to issue tropical advisory products up to 72 hours before the anticipated arrival of the storm. The old way was just 48 hours ahead of the storm's forecast arrival. ⏩ The NHC will also start issuing a rip current risk map. This product was added because, according to the NHC, during the past decade, there has been an increase in surf and rip current fatalities in the United States. Below is an example of what it will look like. The rip current risk map will be issued when there is one or more named storms in the ocean. They will use information from local National Weather Service offices to determine the risk of rip currents. The National Hurricane Center said it would like more feedback to continue improving its messaging and forecasts. To give feedback to the NHC, go here. Don't forget to take the power and reliability of the WKRN Weather Authority with you at all times by downloading the News 2 Storm Tracker app. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Scientists say Nashville is sinking. Here's why
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A new scientific study shows that some of the largest cities in the United States are slowly sinking. In fact, Nashville appears to be sinking about one millimeter each year. News 2 spoke with Leonard Ohenhen, one of the researchers in the study, who said the sinking across the country is caused by both natural and human-caused processes. According to Ohenhen, water use, drilling of natural gas/oil, and the weight of infrastructure is causing sinking in some of the cities in the study. He added that sinking in Music City is caused naturally by a process called 'Glacial Isostatic Adjustment.' Where are Tennessee's earthquake hot spots? Glacial Isostatic Adjustment is the land's reaction to the melting of the glaciers thousands of years ago. Ohenhen said this causes some locations to rise and others to sink. 'Think of it like a memory foam, if you put a large weight on it, where the weight is after the weight is removed starts to rising, and places that were adjusting to where the weight was would rise due to that weight, but when the weight is removed it starts going down to sort of have equilibrium,' Ohenhen told News 2. Nashville's sinking could reportedly lead to worse flooding during heavy rain events, but Ohenhen said there shouldn't be many infrastructure issues because the whole city is sinking at the same speed. | READ MORE | 'Roads, railways, buildings, and other infrastructure themselves can over time be compromised due to land subsidence, but in Nashville, the good thing is all the land is sinking almost at an even rate,' he explained. Ohenhen said this isn't the same for other cities in the study, adding many of the cities in Texas have a high or very high risk of infrastructure issues. According to the study, not every city is sinking. In fact, Memphis was one of the cities that were slowly rising. Ohenhen said the entire city isn't rising, but parts of Memphis are rising due to the natural recharge of the groundwater. ⏩ The biggest concern with the sinking is coastal flooding, but Ohenhen said obviously that is not a problem for Nashville. To read the entire study, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Yahoo
LiDAR technology helping provide ‘holistic picture of the roadway' in areas across Nashville
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — The Vision Zero Advisory Committee got an update about Nashville's ongoing collection and use of data from LiDAR technology. On Tuesday, the Vision Zero Advisory Committee met for their regular meeting. Vision Zero is a Metro-wide initiative aiming for zero pedestrian deaths along Nashville's roadways. William Barbour, a senior research scientist and adjunct professor with Vanderbilt University, spoke before the committee to provide an update about how the LADDMS program could help achieve that goal. MARCH: LiDAR technology identifies near-miss pedestrian crashes every day in North Nashville The LADDMS program utilizes LiDAR and some video camera technology to analyze near-miss pedestrian crashes at intersections, including near the intersection of 24th Avenue North and Clarksville Pike in North Nashville. Barbour explained that the sensors return an anonymized view of all objects on the roadway, meaning that leaders can get a sense of cyclists, pedestrians, cars and buses in the roadway without recording personally identifying markers. 'This holistic picture of the roadway, we believe, is something extremely powerful because it addresses lots of different use cases,' Barbour said. 'Safety being a primary one.' Barbour said that the technology recorded each instance when pedestrians did not use a designated crosswalk to cross the roadway. He added that he once sat at the same intersection for 12 hours and did not notice the phenomenon, so the technology was useful to identify otherwise-invisible patterns in pedestrian behavior. The data also let officials know to adjust infrastructure at the location to better meet the needs of pedestrians there. In addition to learning more about near-miss pedestrian crashes in North Nashville, Barbour said that officials have used the technology to study the timing of traffic signals along Demonbreun Street. LiDAR has also been implemented on Shelby Avenue in East Nashville to look at the best design for bike lanes. JANUARY: LiDAR technology aiming to improve Nashville street safety 'We certainly have ambition to do more with this. There is a whole list of pedestrian safety countermeasures from FHWA [the Federal Highway Administration] that are on our list that we would like to study as these things are rolled out across Nashville,' Barbour said. 'It's a very ripe opportunity for before and after studies to find out what works best and in what situations.' Barbour added that they want to put the mobile unit in the 12 South neighborhood to study pedestrian crashes there next. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.