When I first heard about eastern hellbenders, I thought they sounded like a motorcycle gang, not large salamanders the color of river rocks. I also had no idea they were important ecosystem indicators for clean water.

The story goes that the amphibian got its name from early settlers who thought the thing was so ugly it must be a creature from the underworld, “hell bent” on returning. But, as I stared at one in southern Indiana, I did not think it ugly. I watched it crawl around the bottom of a plastic transport container filled with water. It walked like an alligator and had long lasagna-noodle-like skin that stretched between its front legs and hind legs. I could see where it had gotten some of its other nicknames such as the Allegheny alligator, mud devil, water dog, lasagna lizard and possibly the least flattering, snot otter.

Marvin was this one’s name — gender yet to be determined. After sustaining an injury, Marvin could not be released back into the wild, so the Sam Shine Foundation stepped in to offer it a permanent home in an aquarium at their offices as an ambassador of its species.

While I was there for Marvin’s welcome party, I sat down with Nick Burgmeier, research biologist and extension wildlife specialist who helps lead Purdue University’s Help the Hellbender project. Eastern hellbenders are expected to be included on the endangered species list later this year.

Historically, hellbenders have been severely misunderstood. They were hunted in the 1930s and ’40s. Fishermen believed they were detrimental to the trout population. Others believed hellbenders were poisonous. Many aimed to eradicate them along with snapping turtles, snakes and other animals ignorantly labeled as “vermin.”

Bergmeier said towns hosted “contests to see who could catch and kill the most hellbenders.”

Sportsmen clubs in Pennsylvania posted bounties on hellbenders in what was called “the war on water dogs,” and newspapers reported that in 1939, more than 800 were killed in one month.

What we know now is that hellbenders play an important role in our ecosystem. “Hellbenders need cool, clean, swift-flowing water,” Bergmeier explained, especially for reproduction. “You’ll still find 25-year-old hellbenders in gross muddy streams just kind of hanging out,” he said, but you won’t find eggs and larvae. It’s a clear indicator of poor water quality, which impacts humans as well.

This is where Help the Hellbenders comes in. Purdue University has an aquaculture research lab used for raising hellbenders. In 2012, researchers began looking for eggs in Indiana’s Blue River. They spent hours each day for about six weeks each year looking for eggs during nesting season, and if they were lucky, they would find one nest. To increase their success, they began working with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, bringing nests they found over to Purdue.

The goal was to hatch them in captivity and then release them back into the wild. The program also engaged zoos in the region for help: Fort Wayne Zoo; Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville, Indiana; and the Indianapolis Zoo. “We take eggs to them every few years, and they rear them to about three and a half years old, and then we release them,” Bergmeier said.

The Sam Shine Foundation has funded a Ph.D. student to do research on the actual effects that hellbenders have when you reintroduce them.

While working to increase the population, Help the Hellbenders also works to improve their habitat.

Scientists at Purdue University and Indiana zoos are not the only ones hellbent on helping the hellbenders. In Pennsylvania, Peter Petokas, who has a doctorate in ecology, works to monitor and restore hellbender populations in the Susquehanna River watershed. It was his students who championed the species to become Pennsylvania’s official state amphibian in 2019. Petokas similarly worked with the Bronx Zoo to hatch and raise hellbenders to ultimately release them back into the wild.