Saving the world, one adorable salamander at a time. Jeff Parmalee, Board Member, Maine Big Night & Teaching Professor and University of New England.

Welcome back to the podcast where we celebrate innovation for our happy planet. 

Today we are meeting with Jeff Parmelee, Teaching Professor at the School of Biological Sciences at University of New England's College of Arts and Sciences. 

Jeff is an evolutionary biologist and ecologist interested in amphibians and reptiles. He teaches anatomy, physiology, and herpetology (the branch of zoology concerning reptiles and amphibians), as well as my favorite, the natural history of the Galapagos. Jeff also serves on the board of Maine Big Night, which he's here to speak about today.

https://www.une.edu/people/jeffrey-parmelee

https://mainebignight.org/

Transcript

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Abigail 0:05

Welcome back to the podcast where we celebrate innovation for our happy planet. I am your host, Abigail Carroll, in our first face-to-face podcast recording. We are at the University of New England in their new recording studio. A visual version of this is currently being produced by my Shaw Innovation fellow Kaylee Dunlap, who has been interning for the podcast for this entire academic year in the studio. Today we are meeting with Jeff Parmley, teaching professor at the School of Biological Sciences at U E's college of Arts and Sciences. Jeff is an evolutionary biologist and ecologist interested in amphibians and reptiles. He teaches anatomy, physiology, and herpetology, which is the branch of zoology concerning reptiles and amphibians, as well as my favorite, the natural history of the Galapagos. Jeff is also on the board of Maine Big Night, which I'm gonna let him tell us about today. Welcome to the podcast, Jeff.

Jeff 1:14

Hello. Yes. It's nice to be here.

Abigail 1:16

I'm so excited to have you here. It's spring here in Maine and something very special is happening for amphibians. What is a big night? night

Jeff 1:25

in terms of amphibians is and it's not really one night, but in the early spring when the temperatures get up in the forties and there's the first rains, these salamanders and frogs that have been in the forest underground in, in under logs, under the leaf litter, they will. Wake up and their first thought is I need to go back to that vernal pool often to where they're actually born. They go back again and again, and they move hundreds of meters through the forest floor until they reach these vernal pools, these temporary pools, which is great for them because they don't hold fish. And so it's a safer place for amphibians to lay their eggs in their. Their larvae, and it's done en mass. There's the timing is based not on the calendar at all, but only on the weather. And so you just look when every year it changes, but, and it's so exciting to, to actually, capture that and be out there when you just see hordes of salamanders and frogs crossing the road.

Abigail 2:18

What kind of volume of creatures are we talking about here?

Jeff 2:21

If you think about this migration it's greater than, the wildebeest in the Serengeti or the caribou migrations. It's in numbers. It just imagine over the northeast, all the millions of salamanders and frogs that do this. And just for us, last year, in 2025 in the spring, our volunteers across the state measured almost 18,000 frogs and salamanders that they helped across the road. And some were dead, but, so that's a huge number.

Abigail 2:46

Incredible. You are here to talk about an organization called Maine Big Knight. And so tell me what Maine Big Night does on Big Night.

Jeff 2:54

Yes. The organization, it started in 2018 with Greg LeClaire, who is just a college student at Unity College in Maine. And he went out with his herpetology club and they helped summers across the road and then it just grew and he's been the leader of this, through the years. And we became a nonprofit with a board of directors and it's just grown exponentially. And we just get more and more just. Ordinary people. It's called citizen science, which is really, it's a really big thing now. And we really facilitate finding sites across the state where there's really critical crossing areas where we just see either a lot of death or there's a vernal pool and a forest area, and we find these sites and there's over, I think, like 600 sites across the state. And the public can go ahead and take a quick training they need to take and then they can adopt a site. It's often families and friends and they can, this is their site and they just wait for the weather. And a Facebook page is really active in the spring. Everyone's saying, oh, could it be, Monday, could it be some rains are coming. And then once they the the adopters of that site, they go out and they walk the area and they will help the frogs and salmons across the road and. And they record all the Alive and Dead and they figure out what species they are, and they just, as a phone app, it gets uploaded and it's really, the two main things are is they're helping, like they get empowered to help these frogs and salamanders and also collecting very valuable data. Yeah,

Abigail 4:19

Yeah, I'm sure.

Jeff 4:20

And this data, if you think about it, if I wanted to. Me and my scientist buddies wanted to figure out, which frogs and summers are crossing. There's no way on these few nights we could travel across the state. Yeah. But when you enlist all, all these volunteers that are going and doing it, it's the only way really to capture all this data in a short amount of time.

Abigail 4:37

That's incredible. And, just to put this in perspective, I read some incredible statistics about how many of these amphibians there are in our ecosystem. Can you speak to the, just the sheer volume of them around in our forests? there's

Jeff 4:53

not that many species. Yeah. As you go further south, and Costa Rica has 215 amphibians. And we have nine salamon or species and nine frogs. And, and the subset of those that would be crossing the road in the spring, it's probably five or six. So on the one hand, there's not that many species. Other hand, it's really good for a project like this. Yeah. 'cause you can, we can really trust the data and you can train people when there's not, hundreds of species like this.

Abigail 5:18

But there's just a lot of amphibians.

Jeff 5:20

Yeah. What's exciting about individuals is they did a study in a forest in New Hampshire, and they counted all of the organisms. There's a huge study, and they found out that the biomass the amount of. Little tiny redback. Salamanders was more than all of the deer squirrels, all the birds and mammals combined. There's just so many per meter. And so they have a huge impact on nutrient cycling as prey for all kinds of animals.

Abigail 5:46

So what is the role of this salama? Why are we gonna work so hard to protect them or the. Frogs is part of

Jeff 5:52

it. Yeah. Yeah. Frogs Anders. Yeah. It's interesting you ask that question. You think, why do we can want to conserve any, any particular animal? It goes to a bigger idea of possibly why what is our role as humans and in protecting endangered species, but I think I'm digressing there. But in terms of the ecological role, these, the amphibians, they're a major source of prey for other animals and they. The spring, they, the adults go to the ponds, these ro pools, and they bring they lay their eggs and then they leave and those larvae are going to grow and they feed on the leaf matter and the algae, and then they will end up taking that biomass from the pond back onto the land. And even the salama in the on land will be burrowing. Like they have a similar function to earthworms. They're gonna help, move the move the earth in their burrows. So they're a major part of the food web and they're also important to nutrient cycling.

Abigail 6:45

Very interesting. And they're also good barometers of the environment

Jeff 6:50

yeah. You almost can talk about being the canary in the coal mine is that they are one of the most sensitive groups. And as a group, as a biologist, you look at all the groups. Freshwater fish are in trouble. And, you hear things with birds and such, but amphibians are the one group that is the most endangered worldwide because they have all kinds of stressors and the fact that they have permeable skin means that they're going to absorb toxins and pesticides so easily. And the other thing is maybe you have a bird or a mammal that lives on land, fish in the water, and Vivians need both. If only one of those isn't working, and then you're gonna have issues with that population. So you need to conserve both of these environments. So they're very sensitive.

Abigail 7:31

So these vernal pools are typically coastal, right?

Jeff 7:35

No, they're just in forest. There's any kind of lowland depression in the forest and they fill with the snow melt in the early spring. But the important thing is they, us, they dry out occasionally. They, some of them dry out every year. That they're wet. And about in July they dry out. And even if some that persist for a few years, they eventually dry out because if they don't, fish can persist and fish will eat every single, and amphibian like that. So these vernal pools, they, in the past they were thought to just hold mosquitoes and just now we really, biologists appreciate and there's, they're giving really good protection vernal pools.

Abigail 8:05

And that's where they're breeding, that's where they're putting laying eggs and such.

Jeff 8:08

Yeah, and what I'd hate to just, it's not every, it's just there's certain species that are vernal pool, they're obligate. They have to have the. Okay. And they include the beautiful yellow spotted salamander. I saw pictures. Yes. And the the wood frogs and the pees. But there are other frogs like toads and bullfrogs, which we'll use streams and The vernal pool ones are unique and like indicators of a good environment. 'cause that means the forest is good, the water is

Abigail 8:32

And if the salamanders are going there, presumably it's good too. 'cause they know how to seek out environments that are good for them,

Jeff 8:38

yeah. And well over time, if it's not they're not gonna have any reproduction. Yeah.

Abigail 8:43

So what are they doing in the winter?

Jeff 8:46

What's really amazing is that these. Creatures and you'll see, look on pictures on online and sites. They're just beautiful. These the frogs and the salamanders, but they're, many people live right here in Maine and never see a salamander. Maybe one's in their basement or something like that. But that's why if you go out, it has to be at night, certain times early. They're just, you can see hundreds of these. So it's just this kind of surprising and beautiful thing to, to like to witness this, these creatures that are so hidden because they spend the whole rest of their life. In the forest, in, in burrows, under leaves, under logs, and they're feeding, living their lives. But they wake up, they go to these ponds and they'll be there no more than a week or two. Then they go back they take the same hike back to their, and then they spend the whole rest of the year. And then the winter, they just need to get down below freezing. they'll hibernate. Are they're hibernated yeah. And some actually don't even, there's some that actually freeze. Do you know, like the wood frog? It freezes solid. They can freestyle. Yes. And they can come back to life. And there's a couple of our frogs that can do that. It's like this is something we try to do with humans.

Abigail 9:53

I've heard of a few people who wanna

Jeff 9:55

Yeah. Yeah. And people will freeze their heads or their whole bodies. They want to because they think I could come back in the future and maybe they've cured whatever killed me. I could see the future. There is that, but, and we're perfectly, we're really good at freezing things. It's just bringing them back.

Abigail 10:07

Yeah.

Jeff 10:08

And when you try, yeah. So you bring it back the tissues are destroyed, et cetera, but something like the wood frog it just pumps itself full of sugar. And so that's, we'd be hyperglycemic. We would go into a coma, but they can withstand these high levels. It's like an antifreeze. So the water freezes around their organs and they're solid, but it doesn't damage their cells. And if you ever see a video as they wake up their little fingers like wake up, and then they're, they start breathing and they start hopping around from being frozen solid. is in our backyards. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's really amazing.

Abigail 10:38

So the, are there nocturnal creatures? You mentioned that their skin is very thin. Is that why? Is it?

Jeff 10:44

That's why they need moist areas. Yeah. Because they don't have the layer of skin like mammals do, and so they dry out very quickly. So that's why they go out when it's rainy nights. Yeah. And the rest of the year they live in wet places, under the leaf litter. Yeah.

Abigail 10:57

How long a journey is this journey on a big night or to a series? Do they make it in a day or is this like a long, arduous pilgrimage?

Jeff 11:06

You're asking some very good questions, Abigail. Some of these need to be looked at more honestly, but no, but you read some papers that they looked at the average distance and it's hard also too. To you can't put a radio collar on these little things and it's very hard to actually, but if we could, I know it's really hard to follow some of these, like we can, like we looking at squirrels here, you can put a trans turtle shell, but it's not hard. It's hard to follow them. But there are people that do this look at somewhere between a hundred meters away and maybe a kilometer that's on the far side of things. But that's a good thing to know is is what's the distance? So then we can start, make these models in biology to predict. How many roads do they need to cross and such.

Abigail 11:43

and have they ever just not showed up?

Jeff 11:45

Oh yeah. They don't ne necessarily breed every year we've found But the thing is like a spotted cell can live over 20 years. Wow. Which is amazing for a small little creature like that. And the thing with amphibians too, I should just mention is that there are years that are dry years where they lay all the eggs in the pond and it dries so quickly. There's everyone dies. It's very sad,

Abigail 12:06

yeah, I'm gonna weep.

Jeff 12:07

it's getting dark. But then the point is that it, that's okay. They could even have a couple years like that, but since they live so long, all they need are a few good years. As a salamander, you just have to replace like yourself really over your lifetime. And so yeah, it's tough out there.

Abigail 12:21

It is. It's a tough world. Little salamander. The organization's been going for about eight years now.

Jeff 12:26

Yeah. But it started very small.

Abigail 12:28

It must be hard to track populations if there's years when they don't show and such. Are there any trends that, that this data can target that would be interesting to

Jeff 12:39

Yeah. The more years we get, the better trends we're gonna have. Yeah. We're looking at now, there's been four or five good years of data and we can't, we can find, luckily we go to these same sites, like families, people tend to go and year after year to these same sites. And so that's incredibly valuable data to be able to look at that and look at changes with climate change or development and that we can look at this. In the future and go back and take a look at all these things. But right now our numbers are growing exponentially because we have more people. And so really have to look at like number of amphibians per person effort, that kind of thing. But it's just too early to say. But we seem to there's many places where amphibians are doing very well, I Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Abigail 13:21

So I'm a little salamander and it's big night and I'm trying to get to a vernal pool. What are some of the hazards?

Jeff 13:29

The main reason for Main Big Night is that we survey roads, and that really is the big issue. Yes. Salamanders have been here for millennia going to these vernal pools, but only in the. A hundred years or so if we had these paved roads. So it's just a blip of time. Now imagine you've, you're a salamander and you've got your vernal pool, and all of a sudden there's a road with traffic and they have no adaptations for that. They're slow. Salamander may even slow down on a road because it, the asphalt tends to hold the heat

Abigail 13:55

little bit.

Jeff 13:55

So that's just working against them. And so what we see at these, like overall last year was like 20, maybe 20, 24% mortality. And it's probably a little less than that. But, overall they have very little little defenses against cars because they haven't evolved with cars. And so with more development, more traffic, more people, it's just gonna get worse and worse.

Abigail 14:15

Thankfully they go at night.

Jeff 14:17

Yeah. We think there's less traffic, so that may help going at night. That's true. And we did a study, I don't, about looking at how COVID-19 actually Oh, interesting. Helped the amphibians. It did not help us very much. One for the team.

Abigail 14:30

the team there, didn't

Jeff 14:31

Yeah. Because we noticed in 2020 and that was, remember that was the beginning of the pandemic and remember also was March, 2020. That was a big, and so that is just the time when amphibians and the year after we noticed why, it seems like the mortality was less, but of course, you need to do, luckily we had the data to, to ask that question intelligently and we did. So we looked at two years after COVID before and that 2020. And you found March, 2020, we could get data on from the DOT about traffic patterns, and then we saw it was less. And the DOT also on their website has all the. Moose, deer bear collisions, it's all available to the public. They can see how many, and you see this big drop in 2020? Yeah. Early spring 2020. And so we looked at our big night data for that year. We found that there was significantly less mortality on the roads. Yeah. So there's less being run over. Yeah. So that tells us that traffic is causing more mortality because when you take it away, we see an improvement.

Abigail 15:25

What are some of the animals that will pre on the little fellows

Jeff 15:29

when they're alive or dead on the road? Do you mean just,

Abigail 15:31

oh, I hadn't thought about the roadkill situation.

Jeff 15:34

If you go in the morning, you don't find dead amphibians because we have the crows get up early and of possums and raccoons. But their predators out in the forest would be I would say garter snakes. They, others, and snakes really like to eat them and. Birds like herons and other birds that even a robin, looking through the leaves will lead a salamander raccoons and skunks. Yeah they're a meal for a lot of

Abigail 16:31

I wanna jump beyond salamanders for just a moment. You worked in the Galapagos. Islands where I've, I actually had the incredible pleasure during college of being able to go with a little team and explore them. And that's where Darwin discovered the finches. And it was a the inspiration for the origin of species and the theory of natural selection, survival of the fit. Fittest. Fittest. And I'm interested in, in Maine big night because I'm interested in I. it seems when natural selection happens among other species, we're very happy to let it play out. And when humans are involved in the problem, thankfully, I think we are interested in getting involved in helping. Is there a logic to that? Is it because just the weight of our impact is so big or so fast? Or I'm just, I don't know. Is that something you can speak to?

Jeff 17:31

Yeah, that's, there's a lot going on there. The whole idea of extinction is a natural thing. Like 99% of the species on earth are extinct. But the thing is, we're at a period now of another mass extinction that is caused by humans, and it's clear crystal clear. This extinction is an extremely rapid, never before has we think, has it been like one organism decided to change the whole earth and cause these extinctions. So it's all, we have I think we have a responsibility to play a part in helping conserve as many species as possible. But I know you're often very optimistic. I'll have to go on the other side of things and just say that it's gonna continue with population growth and issues on the earth that are gonna cause. Species to, to get less and less in num, more and more extinctions. But my hope, my optimism here with Big Knight is that by knowing the problem and by doing what we can, and even studying the problem, now we can, at least I know a Maine in the future will have, there's gonna be more and more impacts as we develop more and more of Maine. So there's gonna be fewer salamanders, fewer frogs. But I think what we can do practically is. With that knowledge, we can start doing things proactively. And we have a project in Oro where we're gonna put, there's a culvert. So we're gonna see if we can put these underpasses to help amphibians, not have to go on top of the road. And so we're seeing that. And can there be. Things that could be done with traffic. Does signage help? Some people might, drive less on a wet spring night. I

Abigail 18:55

say, the salamanders might have trouble reading the signs, but,

Jeff 18:57

Okay. Yeah. No, yeah. I was not talking about the Sal. I was trying to influence human behavior, which is a, a very, it's a very difficult one,

Abigail 19:04

just outta curiosity, 'cause we didn't, I meant to ask it earlier, what are the tools that the citizen scientists who are out on big night useing to help the salam maers cross those

Jeff 19:16

Sure they you need to be properly safe in the roads 'cause you're at the roads at night and rainy night. So a reflective vest is necessary. And the lights and kids, there's some sites that are higher traffic than others. And so we, we even have a category if, family friendly, if it's, if a quiet road compared to a more busy road. But pretty much you're gonna, you're gonna walk this road slowly and you can help move the salamanders in the direction that they were going and the frogs trying to help them across.

Abigail 19:45

So you hold them or you just.

Jeff 19:47

you I pick them up and move them. Okay. Some people have a spatula or you have a laminated card. If if you, the least you can disturb them, the better. Yeah. But you can handle them as long as your hands are clean, you wash your hands, there's no perfumes or lotions and you can handle, and I kind encourage. When a kid first picks up a frog, it just, it makes a difference, I think. Yeah, it definitely does. And, but some say, you, you shouldn't touch them. Obviously the least handling would be the better. But there's, studies, people have had captive frogs and salamanders for decades and they handle

Abigail 20:18

I was wondering how you prevent people from taking them all home. Those little yellow

Jeff 20:22

are really cute.

Abigail 20:23

are awfully cute.

Jeff 20:24

Oh, I know. Yeah we, it's not. It's not our business. What they're doing out there. You wind up in the pocket,

Abigail 20:29

I

Jeff 20:30

I don't know. Yeah. And they, yeah they're not, you need a permit to actually keep these wildlife. But as a kid I had toads and aquarium and things like that.

Abigail 20:38

I was gonna ask how you got interested in amphibians.

Jeff 20:40

Oh yeah. I could have studied birds or insects or plants. I have a varied interest, but when I started graduate school and my master's, I I just had a class that I liked. We studied these jars of alcohol with fish in them and frogs and snakes. And I liked the professor and we went out in these field trips and so I said, Hey, can I work with you? And that's the, it could have been, I could have studied many different things, but and then once I got my PhD, I oh, I love, and it's a big wide group 'cause reptiles, amphibians include things as different as like a crocodile and a salamander and a turtle, and a lizard, and a snake. So it's a big group.

Abigail 21:14

that's very cool. So I wanna talk a little bit about citizen I, it sounds like they have a really important role on main big night. But what more can people do? What can people do in their backyards, in their lives to help mitigate these, the destruction of these little guys?

Jeff 21:33

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Citizen science is on many levels is just amazing. And it's a new thing for me. I it wasn't because you think, oh, how can a non-scientist collect this data that we're using to publish papers? Things like that. But a lot of studies have shown that with a little bit of training and we go over the data every season. Yeah. That we feel real confident that people, and there's all, now there's pictures taken of everything and so we can take a look at that. And you think about this main big night we talked about, I talked about having 17 or 18,000 salamanders and frogs last year. The Christmas bird count is with birds have been going on for over like a hundred years. And this year, that citizen science project, they had. 83,000 volunteers and 44 million birds, so yes, this is worldwide, but that's, this is a citizen science project that has been, is just so useful. And new species, invasive species popping up these long term things and citizen science also, besides the, for me. The person doing a big night. Many of them, it's the excitement is helping them across the road. And, it's wonderful because you know that there's traffic on these roads and like you've really helped these individuals. But also that long-term data as a scientist, I'm so excited about is getting, doing that and just getting people involved. They feel like they have a role and you know that you can see policy and you can see things you don't think you can control, maybe like you enjoy wildlife. This is something that's like tangibly you can go out, collect this data that really is gonna, is adding to this database that's gonna help conserve them in the long run.

Abigail 22:59

It's all ages going out there.

Jeff 23:01

Exactly, yep. There needs to be a person that is certified that's gonna enter the data. Yeah. But other people, your friends can join, kids can join to, to do it. Yeah.

Abigail 23:09

So you've gotten a lot of press this year. Do you know how, what your numbers of citizen scientists joining are gonna look like?

Jeff 23:16

oh the Facebook group has over 8,000 people. Okay. Yeah. But then when we look at the number of certified volunteers, it's in seven, 800 range. These are certified. And then again, it's twice as many people actually go with them. Yeah. And we're talking about, and if you look at the graph I graph like participation, it is just going up and up because people find out from friends they see on social media, and they can get involved with this.

Abigail 23:39

It sounds like a really fun time as well as helpful and instructional. You mentioned I was optimistic and you said you weren't gonna be super optimistic, but I'm not gonna let you leave us there. Okay. Okay. So now give me the right answer.

Jeff 23:54

Alright

Abigail 23:54

no, seriously what you're seeing out there. And, with your students and, as well as out in nature and on the, with the amphibians and in other creatures that you've been observing. How bad is it? And are you hopeful at all? What brings you hope?

Jeff 24:09

Yes. Yeah. As a, I'm a biologist, a conservation biologist, and so when you look worldwide, it's easy to be pessimistic when population growth with the, con commit the burning of fossil fuels the eminence, climate is gonna get warmer. There's gonna, sea levels are gonna rise. There's gonna be, we're seeing it, as El Nino this year coming up. If there're more and more rapid, so it's easy to be pessimistic, but I, I really see, I guess this is that this group, like amphibians and reptiles, it's, they're not as cuddly. You don't see a lot of, people really, save the snake, save the deer and the birds. But I see more and more in the young people more embracing reptiles amphibians and embracing being good stewards and being good conservationalists. Things like, recycling every little bit is gonna help in the big picture. So that's optimistic to me. I see in people, I see greater a greater desire to be a part of the solution. And of course, there's a segment of population that you're not gonna reach and they're just, they don't. They just don't care. And that's, they're not engaged, it's frustrating. They're not engaged and it's all about, them. It's not about, that, but you get people like you and other people, my students that are just excited and they just wanna learn and they wanna make a difference. Big now, we go out year after year and the amphibians are there. We haven't seen these big declines, although we don't have enough data really to see, like a few more years to be able to see if we go to these same sites. Are the numbers declining? And even though the years vary, if you have enough years, you can start to make some conclusions and we can look at, even if the number of people varied, we can correct for that and say how many salamanders per time, per person. And I guess I don't have the data to say that they're not declining in Maine. But surely I know with the you can look around and I can see all the new. Subdivisions, the new houses, each one brings a new car, or two or three. And I know the traffic patterns are gonna get greater and greater, but I hope we, we come up with more solutions. 'cause now we're taking the data from big night. We're saying, what can we do? How can we, that's the big point of it. The big piece of it is now that we know this, what can we do? I think these crossings are one, one avenue. Each one is very expensive to make, but if they're going to replace a part of the road anywhere, we'd love to have them make these crossings to prevent this death. Does signage work? Can we convince people not to drive as much on these few rainy nights? It would it make a big difference? So maybe there's solutions that haven't, we haven't come up with yet, but we're collecting the data anyway.

Abigail 26:33

The first part is understanding the problem.

Jeff 26:35

Yeah.

Abigail 26:35

Thank you so much, Jeff, for your time today. I feel optimistic and I'm very excited to join main big Night, one of these nights. Can you just tell us how to join?

Jeff 26:45

Yeah. You go to Maine big night.org and now it says how to get involved. And like I say, you simply, someone does a training, you sign a waiver and then you can, there's an interactive map. You can look near your home and say, oh, where did the sites avail? Some of them show that, oh, they invite others to come with them. So you can we can put you in touch with people like that, but you just adopt a site and yeah, it's, you can contact me too for a, I do a couple around Biddeford right on campus. Yeah. Yeah.

Abigail 27:11

It sounds like a whole lot of fun and and it's important work. So thank you for coming and and thank you for all you're doing in the community.

Jeff 27:18

Ah, it's a pleasure.