BETHEL – The past 10 days without rain have kept Maine’s salamander egg-production numbers down significantly in vernal pools, but not those of wood frogs.

Harbingers of spring, wood frog egg masses are now hatching in southern Maine, but are just now being laid in western Maine due to the long winter.

“We’re generally one to two weeks behind,” Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s reptile and amphibian group leader Phillip deMaynadier of Bangor said by phone on Wednesday afternoon.

“However, with this week’s warm weather, we are very quickly going to catch up as evidenced by this week’s egg hatch in Kennebunkport.”

Wearing waders on Wednesday afternoon, wetland scientist Donald E. Murphy of Bethel and New England Forestry Consultants Inc. was surprised to find 35 wood frog egg masses in a vernal pool in the Mahoosuc Land Trust’s 18-acre Gateway parcel in Bethel.

He checked a day or two before and there were no eggs in the pool. Normally, by this time, there would be 75 such egg masses in the 30-foot diameter pool at the edge of woods and a hayfield.

According to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, a vernal pool is a natural, temporary to semi-permanent body of water occurring in a shallow depression during spring or fall, which may dry during the summer.

In 2006, the Maine Legislature passed new rules protecting significant vernal pool habitat that went into effect as of September 2007. This spring is the first time those laws can be applied.

That’s why Murphy, who grants wetlands permits, has been checking area vernal pools.

To qualify as a significant vernal pool, such waters must contain 40 or more egg masses of wood frogs, or 20 or more egg masses of spotted salamanders, or 10 or more egg masses of blue-spotted salamanders, or just the presence of tiny fairy shrimp and endangered or threatened species like the ribbon snake or Blanding’s turtle.

Additional criteria clarified last week by Maine Gov. John Baldacci are, that a significant vernal pool will have no inlet and outlet, that it dries up by July 31, and that it doesn’t remain ponded in any given year.

According to the new law, landowners must maintain a minimum of 75 percent of the critical terrestrial habitat around a significant vernal pool as unfragmented forest with at least a partly closed canopy of over-story trees to provide shade, deep litter and woody debris.

Murphy said the MDEP requires a 250-foot setback around such pools, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requires 500 feet, and corps’ partner, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requires a 750-foot setback.

According to deMaynadier, the new law also motivated the MDEP to establish a vernal pools Web site, which now contains a page in which the public can input and view posted observations of vernal pool breeding activity and the progress of egg laying.

To access the form or site, visit:

www.maine.gov/dep/blwq/docstand/nrpa/vernalpools/index.htm.

For instance, one woman wrote on Wednesday that wood frogs are just getting going in Auburn.

Unlike salamanders, wood frogs, which produce a natural antifreeze and aren’t susceptible to cold, are tied more to temperatures than rainfall. That rain could come this weekend.

“Wood frogs are good to go, but this drought has complicated things for salamanders. A lot more movement will occur with the next rainfall. So, if ever we’ve set ourselves up, this weekend could see the balance of salamander migration in central and southern Maine,” deMaynadier said.

Workshops offered on vernal pools

To learn how to recognize significant vernal pools under Maine’s new law, two of Maine’s most recognized experts, Aram Calhoun of the University of Maine at Orono and Phillip deMaynadier of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, will conduct a three-hour workshop from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Thursday, April 24, in Daggett Lounge at Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

Additionally, Donald E. Murphy, wetland scientist for New England Forestry Consultants Inc. recently opened the Maine Forest and Wetland Services Center in Bethel. From 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 17, Murphy will conduct a vernal pool workshop in Bethel starting in Bethel’s Davis Park on Route 26.

After the presentation for the Small Woodlot Owners of Maine, Murphy will take participants to a nearby vernal pool. Topics of discussion include vernal pool biology, the role of vernal pools for supporting wildlife, agreed-upon logging practices around vernal pools, and current state and federal environmental regulations. For more information on the Bethel workshop, contact Merle Ring at 674-3787.