海角大神

Robert Cooper scoops a salamander from one of the six fish tanks he keeps in a small, unadorned room, its walls just bare cinder block.

鈥淭his is my big boy,鈥� he says, projecting his voice above the gurgling water. Cooper stretches his heavily tattooed arms and hands out before him鈥攖he words 鈥渉ate鈥� and 鈥渞age鈥� are spelled across his knuckles鈥攖o reveal the tiny, slippery amphibian twisting in his cupped palms.

鈥淗e ain鈥檛 too happy right now,鈥� he adds. The salamander, an eastern hellbender, is a reclusive species that rarely interacts with its own kind, let alone humans.

Cooper knows what it feels like to be confined in someone else鈥檚 grip. He鈥檚 been a prisoner here at Marion Correctional Institution, in central Ohio, for 15 years. The hellbender he holds and the 11 others in the room are an endangered species endemic to parts of the Midwest, the South, and the Northeast. In six months, they will be released into the wild as part of the Ohio Hellbender Partnership, a consortium of zoos, universities, and government agencies collaborating to help the amphibian鈥檚 recovery.

There is no certain date for Cooper鈥檚 release, however. He murdered a woman 15 years ago, when he was 21, and is serving a sentence of 27 years to life.

Five years ago, to keep busy and give himself a sense of purpose while doing his time, Cooper joined several other men at the prison to start an organization they named Green Initiative. The original project was to start a garden on prison grounds so the men could be outside more, fill their days productively, and have fresher food available to them and their fellow prisoners.

The men now grow crops on an acre and a half of land; last year they gave away 15,000 pounds of vegetables to the Salvation Army and local churches and community programs. Green Initiative also raises bees and has built a greenhouse to grow hydroponic herbs and raise tilapia in an aquaponic system. It started the prison鈥檚 first recycling program, diverting more than a million pounds of garbage from landfills in 2013 alone.

Cooper and his friends鈥� efforts eventually helped convince officials at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction that it should join the Sustainability in Prisons Program, a nationwide network that formed in 2012 and that includes five states and three counties in California. SPP officials say another 20 states and 10 countries have since contacted them about starting programs, which appeal to prison officials because they can lower costs. Prisons are notoriously wasteful. Many buildings are old and leaky, making them inefficient to heat and cool, and staff and prisoners have little incentive to recycle.

But recycling can save money, says Leah Morgan, who was hired in 2012 to be ODRC鈥檚 first sustainability expert. At Southeastern Correctional Complex in Ohio, she says, the institution鈥檚 trash bill went from $96,000 a year to $5 after a recycling program was started. Prison officials saved $60,000 a year by reducing the number of trash bags they needed to purchase.

鈥淪ince then we have a department-wide policy that requires all our institutions to recycle,鈥� Morgan says. Ohio State University now pays Southeastern to separate trash after football games, allowing it to boast that it has achieved zero waste during the season and enabling Southeastern to pay inmates to separate the trash. Any leftover money goes into a statewide pool that is distributed as grants to support additional sustainability efforts across the state, such as Cooper鈥檚 hellbender project.

Morgan got the idea for the project when she attended the first national SPP conference in 2012 and learned that incarcerated men had been raising endangered frogs for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. (Prisoners elsewhere are helping to raise Taylor鈥檚 checkerspot butterflies and Pacific pond turtles.) Impressed, she returned determined to start a similar partnership in Ohio.

鈥淲e started calling potential partners鈥攝oos and other environmental organizations,鈥� Morgan says. 鈥淲e said, 鈥楬ey, we鈥檝e got this not-so-crazy idea,鈥� and 鈥楲ook, Washington is doing it.鈥� 鈥� She discovered the hellbender partnership and spoke to ecologist Joe Greathouse, director of conservation science at The Wilds, a private, nonprofit safari park and conservation center that works with the Columbus Zoo, a member of the state鈥檚 hellbender partnership.听

鈥淚 thought it was a great idea,鈥� says Greathouse. He had just received a grant to buy supplies to build nest boxes for hellbenders, giving them more habitat once released in the wild. He proposed that the inmates at Marion both raise juvenile salamanders and help build the boxes.

鈥淭he men and women who work with the endangered species from inside the fence are given an opportunity to help sustain the life of another species鈥攊t鈥檚 really rewarding for them,鈥� Morgan says. 鈥淎t the same time, it鈥檚 incredibly helpful for the scientists, who otherwise might not have the time and resources to dedicate to raising these animals at the scale needed to make an impact.鈥�

The largest North American salamander鈥攖hey can grow to two feet in length鈥攈ellbenders have been even more resilient than the prisoners raising them. They survived the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, but in just a few decades they鈥檝e lost much of their habitat, and much of what remains has been degraded.

Population surveys conducted between 2006 and 2009 showed an 82 percent drop from the mid-1980s. A range of factors are at work: Hellbenders like to live in clear, clean streams with gravel bottoms and make their homes under large rocks. Pollution and silt from road construction, agriculture, and other development have muddied the water and buried the rocks, while dams and stream channelization have degraded habitat. The illegal pet trade also may be partly to blame.

Over the past decade a number of streams that once had healthy hellbender populations have been cleaned up, yet the salamanders鈥� numbers did not rebound. So ecologists came up with the plan to collect eggs, raise the juveniles in captivity, then release them when they have grown to young adults.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e really vulnerable to predation when they鈥檙e young,鈥� says Greathouse. 鈥淥nly about 10 percent of the larvae survive their first year of life, and only about one individual per 50 eggs survives.鈥�

The prison environment, it turned out, is well suited for raising hellbenders. At the Toledo Zoo, where Cooper鈥檚 salamanders were hatched and more than 500 juveniles are being raised for the repopulation effort, staff members must follow a strict protocol to avoid transferring any infectious agents such as the deadly chytrid fungus from other amphibians in their care. Employees must change into surgical scrubs, wash up to their elbows, and step into special shoes that never leave the biosecure room where the young hellbenders live.

At Marion, such precautions aren鈥檛 necessary because no other amphibians are on-site. 鈥淚n some ways, it鈥檚 the ideal situation,鈥� says Andy Odum, curator of herpetology and assistant director of animal programs at the Toledo Zoo.

Still, foster parenting hellbenders is not for everyone. With tiny eyes, a flat head, and wrinkled skin slick with mucus, they鈥檙e not exactly cuddly. (The caption for a photo of the hellbender on Wikipedia helpfully notes, 鈥淗ead is in the lower right corner.鈥�) They also secrete slime when they feel threatened, and will occasionally bite.

鈥� Nancy Averett is a freelance journalist who enjoys writing about science, social issues, and athletes. Her work has appeared in Audubon, Pacific Standard, and Inc.听

鈥� This article originally appeared at TakePart, a leading source of socially relevant news, features, opinion, entertainment, and information 鈥� all focused on the issues that shape our lives. Visit takepart.com/start-from-the-source.听

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