Warming could endanger Va.'s mountain wildlife

In a fragrant forest near the top of Virginia's second-highest mountain, Kevin Hamed flipped some birch bark and found a living treasure.

Hamed turned up a rare Weller's salamander, a 3-inch, lizard-like creature with a golden back flecked with black.

"It's an awesome animal, in my opinion," said Hamed, a 36-year-old biologist. "You don't see gold that often in nature."

If the climate warms too much, you might not see this animal, either.

The Weller's salamander is found only on a few mountains where Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina meet -- including the 5,520-foot Whitetop Mountain, where Hamed was searching.

The peaks and ridges of the southern Appalachian Mountains are home to numerous unusual animals and plants that require cool, moist homes.

Scientists such as Hamed, an assist ant professor at Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon, call such misty wildernesses "islands in the sky."

Research indicates mountain species in other parts of the world are moving uphill in response to global warming, a phenomenon dubbed "the escalator effect." Hamed wants to see if that's happening here with salamanders.

Scientists fear that many high-living animals and plants will become stranded atop mountains that are too warm.

"If the climate warms, the populations on these islands will blink out," said Bryan Watts, a biologist with Virginia Commonwealth University and the College of William and Mary.

. . .

After the last ice age ended more than 10,000 years ago, some cold-loving animals and plants moved north as the Earth warmed. Some simply moved up mountains.

A number of ice-age survivors inhabit Virginia's high ridges, including northern flying squirrels and red spruce trees.

In the northern U.S. and Canada, these species are more common. In Virginia, they are rare.

Another ice-age relic, the snowshoe hare, has apparently died out in Virginia, possibly because warming temperatures meant less snow in which the white-in-winter animal could hide from predators, experts say.

Virginia's mountains are also home to a number of rare salamanders -- smooth, moist amphibians with anatomically fixed smiles. For example, the Shenandoah salamander and the Peaks of Otter salamander live in isolated parts of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains -- and nowhere else.

Virginia's mountain species are important ecologically, forming key links in the food chain. And they are part of our heritage, said Chris Burkett, wildlife action plan coordinator for the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

"When we lose one of these," Burkett said, "Virginia becomes just a little less special."

. . .

Hamed hiked into the spruce forest that sits on Whitetop Mountain like a dark-green toupee. (Yes, the top of Whitetop is green.) About 300 miles southwest of Richmond, Whitetop is higher than every mountain in Virginia but its neighbor, the 5,729-foot Mount Rogers.

The interior of that Whitetop forest looked like a fairyland. The spruces blotted out most of the sun, and green moss hung from branches. Knee-high ferns dotted the forest floor, which was soft underfoot.

Hamed, a jovial, fit man who clearly enjoys being outdoors, picked up some decayed wood and squeezed. It spewed water like a sponge.

"It's just like the Pacific Northwest," Hamed said.

Or Canada. Or Alaska.

A short distance down the mountain's side, Hamed looked for salamanders. He found not just the Weller's but the rare pygmy and the more-common northern gray-cheeked and the Blue Ridge dusky.

After two years of study, it's too early to detect trends in the animals' movements. While some salamanders have indeed moved up the mountain, the Weller's salamanders have gone down -- perhaps retreating from logged areas into shadier spots.

Climate change could work with factors such as acid rain and disease to devastate mountain salamanders, said Hamed, who is pursuing a doctorate at the University of Tennessee.

Hamed knows that some people probably don't care a lot about moist little animals that hide under leaves and logs. When it comes to arousing concern, Hamed said, "Fur helps."

But salamanders are living symbols of the wild, mysterious southern Appalachians, and they have long sparked the curiosity of scientists and everyday people.

For Hamed, it would be a sad day when he could no longer turn over some bark and strike four-legged gold.

Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or rspringston@timesdispatch.com.