Monster “hellbenders” are lurking in West Virginia’s cleanest streams

HINTON, W.Va. — Beneath the surface of clean-flowing streams in West Virginia, a multitude of strange creatures lurk, but none is perhaps more shocking to encounter than the hellbender.

Also known as the devil dog, the mud devil, and the Allegheny alligator, its names testify to the strangeness of what turns out to be an giant aquatic salamander that is at once both repulsive and magical, depending on who you’re discussing them with.

Lisa Stansell Galitz says she thinks the creatures are indeed magical as they’ve been indigenous to a specific region for so long, though they’re often hard to find, living among rocky river bottoms.

“Anytime you have something that has this kind of longevity, it almost automatically becomes magical,” she says. “They’ve been around for a long, long time, and we should pay attention to what they telling us.”

She refers to the delicate nature of the indelicate-looking beast, which thrives in only the most healthy streams. They are thus indicators of poor water quality, a concern in parts of West Virginia where the hellbender, or Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, lives.

The slimy brown monsters are the largest salamanders in North America and the fourth-largest aquatic salamander species in the world  and employ an unusual system of respiration that allows them to breath underwater. They can grow to 29 inches long.

Due to the impact of disease and habitat loss, the animals listed as a vulnerable species though groups like the New River Conservancy, for which Galitz serves as marketing director, are working to reverse the condition.

“Here’s this ugly little monster, but if we never found them in our waters again, I feel like that would be devastating on a lot of different levels.”

The conservancy is urging people in the New River watershed and beyond to comment on a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate it as endangered.

The animal is considered a “habitat specialist,” she says, and has “adapted to fill a specific niche within a very specific environment.”

Its survival depends on a consistent flow, temperature, and availability of dissolved oxygen—circumstances found only swift waters, which limits its habitat from the outset.

Within the watershed in Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina, state governments have listed the hellbender as a species of “great conservation need,” Galitz says.

Andrew Downs, executive director of the conservancy, says the hellbender is also culturally important; though few people encounter the creature, many native Appalachians know of it.

“Not only does the presence of hellbenders indicate the rivers we rely on for drinking water are clean,” Downs says, “but this sometimes-strange-looking and beautiful creature is part of the identity of our region,” he says.”

“If we fail to protect it, we fail to protect a part of ourselves and the character that makes our Appalachian communities unique.”

In addition to perishing from poor water quality, she says hellbenders can also be killed or injured and their homes destroyed when anglers and swimmers move rocks in the streams.

“Leave the rocks alone,” Galitz says. “I wasn’t taught, and I did not teach my kids, that the river rocks are somebody’s home. We need to do better.”

Go here to comment on listing the species as endangered before February 11, 2025

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