To locals in Darjeeling, the salamander is Goro, the “little dragon” that swims in mountain ponds. To scientists, it is a living fossil whose ancestors walked among the dinosaurs, survived the Chicxulub impactor and made it through the mass extinctions that followed.
To conservation biologist Barkha Subba, the elusive Himalayan salamander is something else entirely. It is a lesson in patience.
The tiny, brown amphibian (less than 4 inches long, at most, from snout to the tip of its tail) with a rubbery, gummy-bear-like appearance spends up to five months a year hibernating in its mud burrow. It emerges only once the first rain clouds roll in.
Monsoon is breeding season. But each salamander will only breed at the site where it was born. This means it must trek up to 2 km; a great distance for a creature so small. These treks are the best time to spot the creature.
Wait long enough at the wetlands where they end up, and one might see the males and females perform a slow, 90-minute “synchronised waltz”, after which the first eggs are laid.
“To watch these quiet, secretive creatures live out their lives, one has to slow down too,” Subba says.
It is this enduring calm that first drew her to them, as a research scholar with Darjeeling’s Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, in 2008. The park houses a terrarium dedicated to the species, and Subba was soon helping with day-to-day care. “Somewhere in that stillness and patience, I found not just a species to study, but one I deeply connected with and wanted to protect,” she says.
She would go on to earn a PhD in conservation science and sustainability from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, in 2018.
Now, as scientific adviser to the Darjeeling-based NGO Federation of Societies for Environmental Protection (FOSEP), her grassroots conservation efforts have won her the prestigious Whitley Award, handed out by the UK’s Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN), and often called the Green Oscars.
The award is good news, Subba says, because it means more attention for the vulnerable amphibians, and £50,000 (about ₹64 lakh) in prize money that she can use to further its cause. We’ll come to what she plans to do with it in a minute. First, a quick recap of where things stand.
The Himalayan salamander lives in cool, shaded wetlands in just three regions in the world: Darjeeling in India, eastern Nepal and western Bhutan. As wetlands shrink, dwindle and disappear as a result of human activity and changing rainfall patterns, the animal has been tagged Vulnerable on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Subba’s research indicates that there may be only 5,000 left in the wild in India.
This is bad news for everyone, she says. “When salamanders begin to disappear, it is often an early warning sign that wetlands and forests are under stress — long before the damage becomes obvious to us.”
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What does Subba plan to do about all this?
She and her team have spent three years monitoring and surveying 30 breeding sites. Working with FOSEP and the NGO World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India), they have so far restored two acres of wetlands on a private plot in Darjeeling. This involved weeding out reeds and planting native species that salamanders can lay their eggs on, underwater.
With the Whitley grant, the team is looking to similarly restore at least seven critical habitats from among the 30 sites.
Only about 20% of salamander territory in India lies within officially protected areas, Subba points out. The rest is scattered across tea gardens, private estates, farms, and government and community plots. But even protection, without the right planning, can be catastrophic.
In 1985, for instance, the hilly hamlet of Jorepokhri was declared the country’s first salamander sanctuary. Soon after, these amphibians disappeared from the area entirely. None have been seen here in over 40 years.
The reason: In order to popularise the sanctuary, the then-government began concretising parts of the wetlands here, and building tourist lodges. The cement foundations trapped hibernating salamanders in the soil, essentially exterminating them by burying them alive.
“It’s an excruciating but important lesson in how, sometimes, declaring an area protected is not, in itself, enough,” Subba says. Long-term habitat management, scientific monitoring, regulation of human activity, and meaningful involvement of local communities, the forest department and local governance are key, she adds.
So, when not monitoring breeding activity, trekking through forests in curtains of rain, and crouching in marshy ponds counting eggs and larvae, she talks to residents and conducts awareness workshops for adults, children, tea garden managers, homestay hosts and taxi drivers. “Tourists end up spending hours shooting vlogs and Reels by these water bodies. They may leave trash behind, scatter salt to ward off leeches. If the locals they interact with can explain how fragile these ecosystems are, visitors may become far more mindful of their impact,” she says.
Getting people to notice and care about the salamander is her next goal. With part of her prize money, she plans to offer livelihood training to local women so they can make and sell merchandise, putting the creature on bags, T-shirts, pouches and the like, as a way to popularise it.
She knows saving it will take more than that.
Her overarching goal is to frame a comprehensive conservation action plan for the Himalayan salamander that would extend to its wetland ecosystems.
There is a lot of good that can come from recognising and protecting mountain wetlands as critical ecological infrastructure, she says. “It isn’t just salamanders that would benefit from these wetlands; they also promote water security, biodiversity and climate resilience.”
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It isn’t about learning or relearning; it’s a question of remembering, Subba says.
As a member of the indigenous Limbu tribe, she knows just how intricately forests and wildlife were once woven into our culture. The Himalayan wetlands were traditionally seen as sacred landscapes associated with local deities and spirits.
No one had to be told not to destroy the forests and water bodies that sustained all life.
“Conservation needs to be about restoring this link, and reconnecting people with the landscapes they have historically lived alongside and cared for,” she says.
Even in local lore, though, the salamander is easy to miss, and this worries her.
It is small and non-threatening, so it doesn’t feature in myths. It wasn’t eaten, hunted, bred or domesticated, so it isn’t part of folk tales. She believes talking about it will help, Subba says, a note of anxiety entering her voice.
So, while she fights to protect wetlands and conduct census surveys, she is telling tales about the salamander, everywhere she goes: What it eats, why it matters, how unique it is, and how badly it needs people to speak up on its behalf. She’d love for you to join in too.
