Along a wooden boardwalk, leaves float on a shallow pool of water where towering cypress trees dominate the small wetland. These non-native trees were planted at the Dawes Arboretum in 1928, just a few years before its Bald-Cypress Swamp was officially created in 1930.
Almost 100 years later, visitors arrive at the arboretum on Rt. 13 south of Newark waving red-light flashlights to catch something special: a glimpse of the annual mole salamander migration.
Once a year, these nocturnal spotted salamanders emerge from hibernation and migrate a short distance to the very same vernal pools where they were hatched in the arboretum’s cypress swamp. This marks the beginning of the breeding season, which Dawes Arboretum celebrates yearly.
On Thursday, March 6 at 7 p.m., waves of people began to arrive at the front tent in the arboretum parking lot. Navy t-shirts were hanging from the rafters, designed with a salamander peeping from a drawn-on front pocket, and “The Great Mole Salamander Migration” written on the back next to a large yellow-spotted mole salamander print.
Four more green tents are set up in a line in the parking lot that runs parallel to the boardwalk, each with workers and volunteers to explain a bit more to the public about these unusual creatures. Circular lamps run along the ground, forming a glowing path to the boardwalk entrance.
At one of the tents, two volunteers explain how the female salamanders will strive for genetic diversity, trying to pick up as many different types of spermatophores as they can, while the males will try to push groups of their own spermatophores to the females, as they are protective over them.
“How long do they live?” asked a man. When the volunteer replied with “up to 20 years,” jaws dropped.
On the night of Wednesday, March 5, the warm, rainy weather created an ideal environment for the migration. Despite the water in the swamp being at about 70% its usual depth and a brisk temperature of 33 degrees, the resilient salamanders left their burrows in the woodland garden for their trek of at least 500 feet to the vernal pools. The ground was warm enough, and that’s all that mattered.
“Those vernal pools support all the salamanders and frogs, all the amphibians, along with all the aquatic insects, too,” said Doug Berube, senior field biologist at Dawes. “Biodiversity is really extended here because of all the different species.”
Doug Berube has been tracking the mole salamanders for a decade, earning him the nickname the “Salamander Whisperer” from his colleagues at Dawes. 
Visitors trekked along the boardwalk at Dawes, hoping to glimpse migrating salamanders. 
Visitors in the Bald-Cypress Swamp at Dawes use red flashlights while trying to spot migrating salamanders.
Of the arboretum’s 2,000 acres, this small patch of marshland was once covered in asphalt, and home to the old road that is now Rt. 13. The abundance of tire tracks made this a great area for a swamp.
To this day, how the salamanders came to Dawes Arboretum is unknown.
But once they migrated into the vernal pools, the Arboretum knew it had an obligation to keep them alive, and to keep this ecosystem going.
“This doesn’t hold water like a normal pool does,” Berube said. “So if you look when you come in, you’ll see we have a hose. … So now we’re just as much a part of it as they are; it’s very much a joint collaboration.”
The swampy area is now home to wood frogs and spring peepers. On a normal day – a day warmer than 33 degrees Fahrenheit – these amphibians are so loud that Berube says he often can’t hear himself think.
This biodiversity and the presence of mole salamanders is a testament to the quality of the habitat, he said. Mole salamanders only migrate to high-quality water sources, as they are sensitive to toxins and pollution.
Their macroinvertebrate prey – water boatmen and “roly-poly” pill bugs – are also indicative of clean water. Set up at the end of the first corner of the boardwalk is Emma Farmer, the ecosystems manager at Dawes Arboretum.
“[The water quality] is really important for salamanders, specifically, because they have permeable skin,” Farmer said. “They’re kind of like membranous, so all of those pollutants would affect them.”
Berube often tracks the salamanders on their journey, and will provide regular updates to his following on social media.
“They’ll travel anywhere from 500 feet to 2,000 feet,” Berube said. “I have followed one one time, and it took almost two hours for him to get here, and he was probably 1,800 feet away!”
Berube started the salamander monitoring program in 2015. He is a certified master herpetologist – nicknamed “the salamander whisperer” by his colleagues – and has led this educational event on mole salamander migration since he began at Dawes a decade ago.
The intense 2024 drought in central Ohio surprisingly had little effect on the salamanders’ breeding cycle. Increased debris in the vernal pools, such as twigs and leaves, only add to the habitat, creating a place for eggs to be safely secured on underwater branches.
But the extra debris made the salamanders more difficult for the public to see. The amphibians tend to burrow themselves in leaves – hence their “Mole” name – both on the forest floor and in the water. This made finding them a little more challenging; younger visitors were heard cheering and shouting their rolling tallies as they found more salamanders on their boardwalk journey.
Berube will often use his white spotlight to detect the mole salamanders that are difficult to see with red light. The public used small red flashlights instead of traditional white ones as mole salamanders’ eyes are sensitive to white light, and can quickly scurry away under it.
Volunteers described the mole salamanders as “explosive breeders,” meaning they have only a few days to breed before returning to hibernation. The males will competitively deposit spermatophores before the females fertilize them.
“Once the water warms up here a little bit, you’ll see a big group of them, like 20 or 30, and we call it a frenzy, or dance, and the males are dancing with them and nudging the females towards the spermatophores,” Berube said.
This unique breeding ritual at Dawes draws a crowd from all over the country. Berube said people have traveled as far as from New Mexico and Florida to witness the dance.
This year, tickets sold out almost immediately, and hundreds of people attended over two days to witness the migration.
Columbus residents Liam Johnson and Neha Patel both “really like salamanders” and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see this event. Johnson works at a lab at Ohio State University studying salamanders.
“I’m interested in them,” he said. “They’re weird, they’re special and there’s not a lot like them.”
Dawes Arboretum is one of the only places for the public to see the migration, said Holly Latteman, interim director of science and conservation at Dawes.
“You get to actually see the salamanders up close. Lots of [other] vernal pools are tucked away in forests and it makes it inaccessible for the public to come and see that,” Latteman said. “We have a specialized boardwalk, and that’s really the Dawes difference.”
After the salamander frenzy, the process isn’t over. As the eggs develop from hatchlings to aquatic larvae to terrestrial juveniles, thousands of visitors arrive at Dawes to learn about their growth, as the salamanders return to their woodland homes.
Mia Fischel and Owen Baker write for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.