The University of Wyoming’s Biodiversity Institute will again put the spotlight on the Western tiger salamander this spring and offer the public opportunities to help assist Wyoming’s state amphibian with its annual migration trek from Laramie yards to the pond in LaBonte Park.

The Laramie Salamander Migration Initiative will start with a volunteer training session 10-11 a.m. Saturday, April 12, in the College of Business Building auditorium. Volunteers will learn what to do during “Migration Nights” that will occur during April.

During Migration Nights, the public is asked to help adult salamanders safely cross the road during their migrations. Each spring, on rainy nights, hundreds of Western tiger salamanders -- taking up residence in the yards of Laramie homes -- find their way to LaBonte Park.

Registration for the “Migration Nights” volunteer list is required of all volunteers, new and returning. People who register will be those who receive an email when the Berry Biodiversity Institute’s research team expects a large migration. People can register at  https://mail.wyobiodiversity.org/index.php/community-science/laramie-salamander-migration-initiative/migration-nights. The training will not be live-streamed, but it will be recorded.  

“We only had one large mass migration night last year, on April 26. We collected data from 89 live migrating tiger salamanders,” says Mason Lee, senior project coordinator in the Biodiversity Institute. “Additionally, 12 salamanders were reported dead on the road from vehicle strikes.”

Lee says weather conditions were more favorable last year in terms of volunteers being out to count the salamanders than in previous years. The first heavy spring rain occurred between 9 p.m. and midnight in 2024 instead of in the very early morning hours, as occurred in 2023. Because of that, the 89 salamanders counted were more than volunteers observed in 2023. During the first year of the project -- 2022 -- volunteers also counted 89 salamanders on the one organized migration night.

Adult tiger salamanders are difficult to find because they spend much of the year underground and, when they are above ground, they are primarily nocturnal. When they reach LaBonte Park, they breed and lay thousands of eggs in the pond. After a few weeks, the eggs will hatch, and small aquatic salamanders emerge. Toward the end of the summer, the tiger salamanders undergo a metamorphosis to become terrestrial adult salamanders. They migrate back to the yards around LaBonte Park, where they spend the rest of the year in underground burrows until the following spring.

“The salamanders can look so different from one another, even within the same population,” Lee explains. “We take pictures of all of the salamanders that we encounter on migration nights and have seen differences in their patterning and tail shapes.”

The research team will be stationed at the LaBonte Park covered picnic shelter near Eighth and Canby streets as well as the shelter just north of the Feeding Laramie Valley building on Ninth Street on the “big” migration nights. Researchers will collect information on the sex and size of the salamanders before releasing them, Lee says.

Volunteers should report to the picnic shelter north of the Feeding Laramie Valley building to collect high-visibility safety vests, gloves and buckets. Volunteers will need to wear warm, waterproof clothing and headlamps.

“We began individually marking a subset of the migrating salamanders in 2024, so we’ll be able to see this year and in future years if we get any recaptures. That will help us build a better picture of what the LaBonte population looks like,” Lee says. “It has been interesting to see that we tend to see a fair number of salamanders that appear to be sexually immature that are migrating on these spring nights. It would be interesting to see if other monitoring programs of Western tiger salamanders see the same. That was an unexpected find from the past few years.” 

The “Report a Salamander” project is another component of the Salamander Migration Initiative. Citizens are asked to submit reports on salamander sightings in Laramie as well as around the state. Reports of live or dead adult salamanders and larval salamanders are welcome. To submit a report, go here to fill out the requested information. 

Last year, the Berry Biodiversity Institute received 22 reports of salamanders from around the state.

“It is always interesting and fun to see pictures and reports of when, where and how salamanders are being encountered in Wyoming,” Lee says. “One of the reports last year was because a salamander was found crawling through an open basement-level window into the reporter’s house. We also received several reports of salamanders in and around LaBonte, which provided information on when they were moving in the summer and spring.

“We have an all-volunteer research team on this project, so we really rely on reports from all of our community members to help us monitor and learn more about tiger salamanders in Laramie and beyond,” Lee continues. “All reports of any tiger salamander sighting, anywhere in Wyoming, help us learn more about where they can be found, and when and where they are moving.”

There will not be a “Salamander Saturday” event this year, Lee says.

For more information about the Laramie Salamander Migration Initiative, email Lee at mlee37@uwyo.edu.

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