They have since built two raceways outdoors with refrigerated water. And now for the third year have been successful in hatching captive-bred Ozark hellbenders and are in the process of reintroducing these hellbenders back into the wild. This has been a very costly research program because it involved building very expensive infrastructure, facilities, large pools 50, 60 feet long, refrigerated water. But we got financial support, both from the State of Missouri and from the Fish and Wildlife Service. And now we’re reintroducing hellbenders back in the wild and they have transmitters so that we can track ’em. We have staff participating, the Department of Conservation staff involved in it and they’re tracking the success and the migratory habits of the introduced species. And we’ll know, within a year or two whether they are breeding in captivity and if in fact the reintroduction program is successful or not. Meanwhile, the state and the federal government are also tryin’ to further determine why they became so endangered, studying the water qualities very, very carefully to determine with whether it’s septic tank overflow or fluid from nearby cabins or if it’s floaters, the several hundred canoers a day on the rivers.
