Groundbreaking partnerships are underway to preserve the endangered Eastern hellbender, the largest amphibian in North America.

Eastern hellbenders have declined dramatically in Ohio and West Virginia over the last three decades.  A statewide effort to reverse this trend is being led by the Ohio Hellbender Partnership, which includes The Wilds, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, The Ohio State University, other zoos in Ohio, and academic and government organizations.

Both The Wilds and the Columbus Zoo rear young hellbenders from eggs collected in their native range. The team monitors them on-site in a lab until they hatch, hand-rears them until they are ready to release, and tags them for monitoring purposes before they are re-released into their native ranges. 

Accomplishments

Hellbenders who were raised at The Wilds are released in West Virginia, and hellbenders at the Columbus Zoo are translocated to release sites with high quality habitat in Eastern Ohio.

• 2024: The Wilds released 341 hellbenders back into West Virginia and Ohio streams! 
• 2023: The team documented reproduction in the wild by hellbenders that had been head-started & released, a significant milestone.
• Thousands of hellbenders have been released in Ohio since 2012 by The Wilds and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.
• Results of this incredible work was recently featured in an open-access, peer-reviewed article. 

The Wilds continues to house hellbenders in our customized facility that will be released in the future once they mature.

Thanks to our partners at the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Greater Cincinnati Herpetological Society, Captina Conservancy, the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, and the Ohio Hellbender Partnership.