VT Herp Atlas Annual Fundraiser 2026

Our Annual Fundraiser has Begun, Please Donate!

Herpers, stick season is on us.  Although Kate, Ira, and I managed to fill in some data gaps for stream salamanders over the last two weeks, the water is getting cold, and we need to switch gears and start restoring our funds for next year.

As always, the goal of The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas is to gather and disseminate the data that are needed to conserve the reptiles and amphibians of Vermont, in a way that involves and informs Vermont individuals and organizations so that they can become more informed and effective stewards of wildlife and their habitat.

Seven years ago, we organized our first fundraiser. In addition to funding our educational outreach, data gathering, and conservation efforts, the fundraiser was also motivated by a decline in our regular grant funding, a pressing need to get all our data digitized for future use, and to assign accurate latitude and longitude coordinates to older records. Our fundraiser was a huge success, so we now hold annual fundraisers in hopes of raising $25,000 or more to support Herp Atlas projects that are not adequately funded by our grants. One ongoing concern for this coming year is what will happen to our grants that come from the federal level (US Fish & Wildlife Service and the USDA’s Forest Service). The USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service had funded four trainings and cooperative work on their conservation projects until their funding was cut this last spring. We will continue our conservation work nonetheless. I hope you can help with a donation.

Donations can be made in a few ways:

• By sending a check made out to James S. Andrews to: The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, 642 Smead Road, Salisbury, VT 05769 (your donation stretches further, with no fees or overhead expenses)

• Through our GoFundMe site – make sure to click “Give once” if you don’t wish to donate monthly

• Via our online shop or the PayPal button on our website

• If you need to donate to a 501c3 non-profit, you can send a check made out to Vermont Family Forests to: The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, 642 Smead Road, Salisbury, VT 05769.* Vermont Family Forests is our fiscal sponsor and they are a registered 501c3 non-profit.

*If your fund requires that a check be sent directly to Vermont Family Forests (P.O. Box 254, 14 School Street, Suite 202A, Bristol, VT 05443), please notify them that your donation is for the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, and please also contact us directly about your donation.

**Checks should not be made out to the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. We can’t cash them that way.

The photo above shows a state-endangered Spotted Turtle, photographed and reported by a contributor this summer. As of this spring, we only knew of three populations of Spotted Turtles in Vermont. Working with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, we expect this report and photo will lead us to the fourth known population in Vermont.

A Short Update of Some of Our Recent Work

(for more information, visit our GoFundMe page).

New Records

From October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2026, 781 contributors (471 for the first time) provided 3,555 new records that were entered into the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas Database. This brings the total number of reports entered to almost 130,000.

Sightings during this period came from 251 towns, cities, grants, and gores, and all Vermont counties. They included all of Vermont’s native species except Boreal Chorus Frog (probably extirpated from Vermont, last reported in 1999), North American Racer (last reported in 2024), and Fowler’s Toad (last reported in 2021). We did add one report of a Fowler’s Toad from an island in the Connecticut River in NH.

Over the past year, we have entered 95 verified new reports of S1 species, 147 verified reports of S2 species, 416 reports of S3 species, 190 new reports of S4 species, and 2,499 reports of S5 species. In addition, we have added negative reports (unsuccessful searches), unverified reports, reports of significant crossing areas, reports of significant herptile habitat, and data from long-term monitoring sites into our database.

We also got reports documenting three new previously unknown locations for the state-endangered Common Five-lined Skink.

Our Surveys

During this period, we personally visited 98 towns (or cities, gores, or grants) to gather new records. Many survey trips focused on those “towns” (including cities, gores, and grants) that have had the least survey effort. This is usually the result of low numbers of residents. Other trips focused on species that are not often reported by citizen scientists. These include the Northern Dusky Salamander (Desmognathus fuscus) and Spring Salamander (Gyrinophilus porphyriticus). We filled in over 165 data gaps (species/town combinations) with these trips.

Field trips, Presentations, and Media outreach

Presentations and field trips included both a presentation and field trip for the Hannaford Career Center in Middlebury, field trips and/or presentations for the Lewis Creek Association, the Salisbury Conservation Commission, the New Haven Conservation Commission, the Dummerston Conservation Commission, Vermont Coverts, Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center, Farm and Wilderness Conservation, the Dead Creek Wildlife Festival, and the Herricks Cove Wildlife Festival. In addition, our assistant Ira Powsner provided presentations and/or field trips for the Vermont Institute of Natural Science and the UVM Herpetology Club, and Kate Kelly presented to the Hinesburg Conservation Commission and nearby residents.

During this time, we also met with writers and press for a number of interviews and news pieces on Vermont herptiles. These include two Wildlife Watch shows for WCAX TV, an episode on Across the Fence, and our annual interview on Vermont herptiles for Vermont Public’s Vermont Edition.

Legislation

Working with the Reptile and Amphibian Scientific Advisory Group to the Vermont Endangered Species Committee, we helped initiate two important pieces of legislation. Before this legislation, anyone with a current hunting license could shoot many of the reptiles and amphibians we were trying to protect. As of January 1, 2027, all reptiles and amphibians will be protected unless it is a common (S5) species and VT Fish and Wildlife gathers the data to show that the species can withstand hunting pressure.

In addition, we helped initiate legislation that  should help prevent the invasive Pond Slider from being imported and released  in Vermont. That legislation went into effect on July 1 of this year.

Publications

Every 5-8 years, we print an updated version of our Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas with our latest distribution maps, as well as many other updated charts, tables, and lists of resources. The previous printed edition was completed in 2019. We have now finished and printed our new 2025 edition. This new edition is also now available through our website at VtHerpAtlas.org.