07-05-2025
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.
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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.'
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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.
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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.
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