Editorial: Marin’s Newt Brigade continues its wonderful legacy
Aesop is credited with saying, “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is wasted.” When it comes to small, the Greek fablist probably wasn’t referring to newts.
But a number of Marin residents devote time and energy to helping make sure small newts get across the road safely.
It is a deadly dilemma. Local amphibians face the risk of getting smashed by cars as the tiny beings make their migration across Chileno Valley Road to their breeding habitat in Laguna Lake, which is part of the Walker Creek watershed. The salamanders then have to crawl back across two lanes of asphalt back to the woods.
West Marin rancher Sally Gale, after seeing the migrating newts five years ago – thousands of them, many of which had been run over and killed – decided to do something about it.
Since then, Gale’s patrol has grown to more than 80 volunteers who take shifts patrolling a one-mile stretch of Chileno Valley Road, every night from October through March. They pick up the newts and move them safely across the road.
They call themselves the Chileno Valley Newt Brigade and their slogan is: “Protecting rights of passage.”
They have also been collecting data regarding the temperatures and weather.
So far this year, the Newt Brigade has saved around 15,000 newts before they could be victims to the tires of passing cars.
Most of the amphibians they are saving are California newts, listed as threatened species by the International Union of Concerned Scientists, and rough-skinned newts.
They have also helped other species safely across the road – the endangered California red-legged frog, the arboreal salamander, slender salamander and Pacific chorus frogs.
Gale is hoping to convince the county to build possible wildlife bridges – raised roads with culverts – to help ensure safe passage for the amphibians.
Her group has won a $78,000 grant to review possible solutions and the county is amenable to including the work when it repaves the road.
For Gale, not only is she helping life around her, but in the brigade she has met “more good people … who want to do good things.”
Kathy Scott, a volunteer from Petaluma, says the brigade’s work is an inspiration that by working together people can “do things that are big.”
The kindness and care these volunteers show to provide safe passage to those newts is an inspiration that we can make a difference – especially to small newts.
No acts of kindness are “wasted,” whether you are a small, slow-moving newt trying to crawl across what must seem to them like a sea of asphalt or a helpful human showing the ability to care about other living things by giving you a helping hand across a country road.