Why are the pools dry along the Discovery Trail?

The vernal pools along the Discovery Trail are all dried up. Why?

These pools are being maintained as seasonal pools that flood in the spring and dry by the end of summer. Drying out each year means these wetlands provide essential breeding grounds for amphibians like wood frogs, spotted and Jefferson’s salamanders who migrate from the woodlands to lay eggs here each spring. The tiny adult frogs and salamanders leave the wetlands before they dry in late summer. Predators like fish and green frog tadpoles found in other ponds cannot survive the drying of the vernal pools.

Limiting the survival of predatory fish and tadpoles means more adult wood frogs and salamanders in our forests! Wait for winter and spring precipitation to again fill these vernal pools.

-Naturalist Dottie Drockton