SOUTHWICK — Vernal pools serve as important incubators for the reproduction of a variety of amphibians and because this is the time of year they spring to life, Conservation Commission Coordinator Sabrina Pooler has issued a challenge to those who enjoy the outdoors to help find them.
“This is the time to do it. This is when the action happens,” said Pooler who took the commission’s intern Isabella Proietti for a vernal pool cluster last week.
“I didn’t know what they were,” said Proietti about the vernal pools that dot the town’s landscape.
While it may look just like a puddle of water in a depression in a wooded landscape, they serve as an important habitat where salamanders, wood frogs, and fairy shrimp reproduce each spring.
And Proietti quickly found that out.
“It looks just like a pool of water, but there were a bunch of salamander eggs in it … a ton of them,” said the Southwick Regional School senior.
Pooler took Proietti to a cluster of vernal pools she found a couple of years ago in the Sofinowski Preserve.
Vernal pool clusters are important, Pooler said, because they are typically interconnected with other pools provide breeding and foraging habitats for amphibians, and if one or two of the pools dry up the others can be used as habitat.
Proietti was there to certify the sixth of the seven pools in the cluster using criteria from the MassWildlife’s Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program.
The goal of the program is to protect the state’s native biological diversity with its highest priority being the protection of the state’s native vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant species that are listed as endangered or threatened.
But while not all vernal pools serve as nurseries for endangered species, the agency will certify ones if certain biological and physical documentation is submitted to the agency.
And it will accept the documentation from just about anyone, including a high school intern like Proietti.
“I had to take photos of the salamander egg clumps (technically, masses) and give directions to it,” Proietti said while looking over the certification form that can be found here.
The pool will be certified in Proietti’s name, Pooler said.
While frogs and salamanders have something of an “ick” factor for many, fairy shrimp, on the other hand, are typically a half an inch to an inch in length, nearly translucent, and according to Proietti, “cute.”
It is one of the more fascinating species that inhabit the pools.
If a pool dries, Pooler said, the eggs laid by the shrimp, which are related to crabs and are a relative of brine shrimp also known as sea monkeys, can survive for years and hatch once it refills with water.
Pooler said for those who might venture into the woods looking for a pool should be listening for frogs chirping, which one might think is unusual, and to look for salamander egg masses and spermatophores, which are blobs of a whiteish, gelatinous mass, usually attached to decaying bark or leaves.
And they can be found just any isolated area.
“You can find them on mountaintops and valleys, and any forested area,” she said.
“It is still early in the season, but there were enough salamander egg sacks to certify it, as well as some spermatophores,” Pooler said.
She added that before venturing out, make sure to get the property owner’s permission.
For more information or help, call Pooler at 413-569-6907.
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