Is the Hellbender Endangered? America's Giant Salamander

What is the hellbender’s conservation status?

The hellbender has two recognized subspecies, and their legal status differs. The table sums up where things stand.

The species is also listed on Appendix III of CITES, the international treaty on wildlife trade, which means exports from the United States need permits. Several states, including Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland and Missouri, list the hellbender as endangered under their own laws, and others give it threatened or special-concern status.

Why the IUCN lists hellbenders as Vulnerable

The IUCN Red List judges a species on its global risk of extinction. Hellbenders still live across a large area, from southern New York to northern Georgia and west to Missouri, so the species as a whole is not yet rated Endangered. But surveys show steep declines in most of that range, and many populations have vanished from individual rivers.

One of the most worrying signs is the age of the survivors. In many streams, researchers find mostly large, old adults and very few young hellbenders. Because hellbenders can live for decades, an aging population can look healthy for years while failing to replace itself.

The Ozark hellbender: the most endangered

The Ozark hellbender lives only in the White River and Spring River systems of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Its numbers fell by an estimated 75 percent from the 1980s, and when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed it as endangered in 2011, only about 590 wild animals were thought to remain.

Disease hit this subspecies hard. Chytridiomycosis, the fungal disease behind amphibian die-offs around the world, killed about three-quarters of the Saint Louis Zoo’s captive Ozark hellbenders in 2006 and 2007, and the fungus was later found in every Missouri population tested. The wider amphibian crisis is described in Why are amphibians declining?

Why are hellbenders declining?

Hellbenders are habitat specialists, so even modest changes to a stream can push them out. The main threats are:

• Siltation: soil washed from farms, logging, roads and construction fills the spaces under rocks where hellbenders shelter, nest and raise their young.
• Dams and impoundments: reservoirs turn fast, cold streams into slow, warm water and cut populations off from each other.
• Loss of streamside forest: a study in Virginia found smaller, older hellbender populations where upstream forest cover fell below about 63 percent. Eggs also hatch less successfully in poorly forested streams.
• Poor water quality: pollution, mining and warmer water all reduce the dissolved oxygen that hellbenders absorb through their skin, as explained in How do hellbenders breathe?
• Disease, collecting and persecution: chytrid fungus and ranavirus, illegal collecting for the pet trade and killing by people who wrongly see them as pests.

Floods can make things worse. In 2024, Hurricane Helene dumped large amounts of sediment and debris into Appalachian rivers that hold some of the best remaining hellbender populations.

Is the eastern hellbender getting federal protection?

The eastern hellbender has been the subject of a long legal process. Conservation groups first petitioned for its protection in 2010. The Missouri population was listed as endangered in 2021, and after an earlier decision not to list the rest of the subspecies was challenged in court, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed endangered status for the eastern hellbender across its range in December 2024.

A final decision was due within a year, but it had not been published by early 2026, and conservation groups went back to court to seek a firm deadline. Until a final rule appears, eastern hellbenders outside Missouri are protected mainly by state laws.

How are hellbenders being saved?

Zoos and wildlife agencies have developed several ways to help:

• Captive breeding: the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri Department of Conservation bred Ozark hellbenders in captivity for the first time in 2011.
• Head-starting: eggs are collected from the wild and raised for several years before release, when the young are large enough to avoid most predators. Programs run in Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, New York and other states. A multi-year study in Ohio found that about 16 percent of released young were still alive after three years, and that releasing larger groups at a few sites worked better than spreading them thinly.
• Habitat work: planting trees along stream banks, reducing erosion and installing artificial nest boxes under the streambed where natural nest rocks are scarce.
• Public awareness: Pennsylvania made the eastern hellbender its state amphibian in 2019 to draw attention to clean-water efforts.

What can people do to help?

The simplest help is to leave hellbenders and their rocks alone. Lifting or moving large rocks in streams can destroy shelters and nests, and taking a hellbender from the wild is illegal in most of its range. Sightings can be reported to state wildlife agencies, which use them to track populations. Supporting cleaner rivers, through less runoff and healthy streamside trees, helps hellbenders and the many other species that share their water. More threatened species are listed in our guide to endangered animals.