Endangered salamander to get car-free spring migration routes in parts of GTA

Greg Schneider, research museum collections manager for the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology's division of reptiles and amphibians, holds a jar containing salamander specimens, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Ann Arbor, Mich. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Mike Householder

Endangered salamanders threatened by sprawling suburbs will get car-free access to small stretches of the Greater Toronto Area this month as they emerge from their subterranean winter shelters and journey under the cover of night to their spring breeding ponds.

Roads in Burlington and Richmond Hill will see closures this month to help Jefferson salamander migrate to their vernal pools.

The stretch of Burlington's King Road has been closed every spring since 2012 through a partnership between the city and conservation authority.

"Helping these salamanders move during a really sensitive time is a win for us," said Gabby Zagorski, an ecologist at Conservation Halton.

King Road is closed from North Service Road to Mountain Brow Road starting Wednesday, until April 9. The road bisects the Niagara Escarpment, the salamander's most popular Ontario habitat.

Meanwhile, York Region says from March 24 to May 2 drivers can expect intermittent overnight closures of Stouffville Road, between Bayview Avenue and Leslie Street, which runs through the Oak Ridges Moraine.

In Canada, the Jefferson salamander is found only in southern Ontario and mostly along the escarpment's deciduous forests. The greyish, blue-speckled amphibian spends winter in abandoned rodent burrows, rock crevices or other moist pockets below the frost line until their spring emergence.

The salamanders, which can live for up to 30 years, capitalize on a warm rainy March or April night to journey to their breeding ponds, often the same one where they were born.

Unlike the loud croaks of their amphibian frog relatives, the Jefferson salamander opts for a silent courtship. Females can lay up to 300 eggs in clumps, usually attached to submerged branches and other vegetation.

A few weeks later, the gilled larvae hatch and undergo a pretty miraculous summer-long development.

They feed on basically anything they can get their mouths around as they start to gradually develop their legs and limbs. By late summer, they will have lost their gills, developed lungs and transitioned to a life on land.

It'll be another three or four years before they fully mature and return to the pond to breed.

"Their life cycle is just very interesting," said Zagorski.

Salamanders are in a race to complete this metamorphosis before the water dries up. Climate change is expected to pose an increasing risk to the species as warmer temperatures dry up those ponds faster or wipe them out completely.

But urbanization is often cited as their most pressing threat. Not only do cars cut across their migration routes, but developments can also alter how the water moves across their habitat and dry out their ponds.

Environmentalists opposed to opening up protected Greenbelt lands for development have often cited the endangered salamander as one of the species most threatened by southern Ontario's urbanization.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2025.

Jordan Omstead, The Canadian Press