U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Sacramento Fish & Wildlife Office
Species Account
CALIFORNIA TIGER SALAMANDER
Ambystoma californiense
CLASSIFICATION: Threatened/Endangered
Main (Central Valley) population - Threatened
Sonoma population – Endangered
Santa Barbara population - Endangered
On 8/4/04, we listed the CA tiger salamander as threatened throughout its range. In doing so, we changed the status of the Santa Barbara and Sonoma county populations from endangered to threatened. Federal Register 69:47212 (PDF), August 4, 2004.
On 8/19/05 U.S. District Judge William Alsup vacated the Service's downlisting of the Sonoma and Santa Barbara populations from endangered to threatened.
In May, 2009, the Service agreed to re-propose critical habitat for the population. 
News Release.
For all Federal Register documents about this species, visit the ECOS, the national Environmental Conservation Online System profile.
CRITICAL HABITAT: Designated
In Federal Register Notice 70:49379, August 23, 2005, we designated 199,109 acres of critical habitat in 19 counties for the central population. See index to unit maps.
In Federal Register Notice 70:74137 (PDF 262 KB), December 14, 2005, we concluded that the designation of critical habitat for the Sonoma County distinct population segment of the CA tiger salamander would have negative impacts on the finalization and implementation of the Santa Rosa Plain Conservation Strategy. Avoiding these negative impacts is a benefit of excluding these lands from the final critical habitat designation. 

8-17-2009 Update:
The Service is re-proposing 74,223 acres of the Santa Rosa Plain as critical habitat for the
Sonoma County population of the California tiger salamander, opening a 60-day public comment
period that closes on Oct. 17, 2009. The Service agreed to re-propose critical habitat in
settlement of a lawsuit, and further to complete its rule-making by July 1, 2011.

The proposed critical habitat is the same area proposed in 2005, and includes most of the Santa
Rosa Plain. The western limit is Laguna de Santa Rosa, and the proposal extends east to
approximately the 200-foot elevation in the foothills. From north to south the proposal extends
from Windsor Creek to Skillman Road. News Release.

RECOVERY PLAN: Under development
The Santa Rosa Conservation Strategy for recovery planning was completed but has not yet been implemented.
DESCRIPTION
The California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) is an amphibian in the family Ambystomatidae. It is a large, stocky, terrestrial salamander with a broad, rounded snout. Adult males are about 20 centimeters (8 inches) long, females a little less than 18 centimeters (7 inches). 
Coloration consists of white or pale yellow spots or bars on a black background on the back and sides. The belly varies from almost uniform white or pale yellow to a variegated pattern of white or pale yellow and black. The salamander's small eyes protrude from their heads. They have black irises. 
Males can be distinguished from females, especially during the breeding season, by their swollen cloacae, a common chamber into which the intestinal, urinary, and reproductive canals discharge. They also have more developed tail fins and, as mentioned above, larger overall size. 
The species is restricted to grasslands and low (typically below 2000 feet/610 meters) foothill regions where lowland aquatic sites are available for breeding. They prefer natural ephemeral pools or ponds that mimic them (stock ponds that are allowed to go dry).
Larvae require significantly more time to transform into juvenile adults than other amphibians such as the western spadefoot toad (Scaphiopus hammondii) and Pacific tree frog (Pseudacris regilla). 
Compared to the western toad (Bufo boreas) or western spadefoot toad, California tiger salamanders are poor burrowers. They require refuges provided by ground squirrels and other burrowing mammals in which to enter a dormant state called estivation during the dry months. 
DISTRIBUTION
This species is restricted to California and does not overlap with any other species of tiger salamander. California tiger salamanders are restricted to vernal pools and seasonal ponds, including many constructed stock ponds, in grassland and oak savannah plant communities, predominantly from sea level to 2,000 feet, in central California.
In the Coastal region, populations are scattered from Sonoma County in the northern San Francisco Bay Area to Santa Barbara County (up to elevations of 3,500 feet/1067 meters), and in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills from Yolo to Kern counties (up to 2,000 feet/610 meters). 
The Sonoma population appears to have been geographically isolated from the remainder of the California tiger salamander population by distance, mountains and major waterway barriers for more than 700,000 years.
THREATS
The primary cause of the decline of California tiger salamander populations is the loss and fragmentation of habitat from human activities and the encroachment of nonnative predators. Federal, State and local laws have not prevented past and ongoing losses of habitat. All of the estimated seven genetic populations of this species have been significantly reduced because of urban and agricultural development, land conversion, and other human-caused factors. 
A typical salamander breeding population in a pond can drop to less than twenty breeding adults and/or recruiting juveniles in some years, making these local populations prone to extinction. California tiger salamanders therefore require large contiguous areas of vernal pools (vernal pool complexes or comparable aquatic breeding habitat) containing multiple breeding ponds to ensure recolonization of individual ponds. 
A strong negative association between bullfrogs and California tiger salamanders has been documented. Although bullfrogs are unable to establish permanent breeding populations in vernal pools, dispersing immature frogs from permanent water bodies within two miles take up residence and prey on adult or larval salamanders in these areas during the rainy season. Louisiana swamp crayfish, mosquito fish, green sunfish and other introduced fishes also prey on adult or larval salamanders. 
A deformity-causing infection, possibly caused by a parasite in the presence of other factors, has affected pond-breeding amphibians at known California tiger salamander breeding sites. This same infection has become widespread among amphibian populations in Minnesota and poses the threat of becoming widespread here. 
Reduction of ground squirrel populations to low levels through widespread rodent control programs may reduce availability of burrows and adversely affect the California tiger salamander. Poison typically used on ground squirrels is likely to have a disproportionately adverse effect on California tiger salamanders, which are smaller than the target species and have permeable skins. Use of pesticides, such as methoprene, in mosquito abatement may have an indirect adverse effect on the California tiger salamander by reducing the availability of prey. 
Various nonnative subspecies of the tiger salamander within the Ambystoma tigrinum complex have been imported into California for use as fish bait. The introduced salamanders may out-compete the California tiger salamanders, or interbreed with them to create hybrids that may be less adapted to the California climate or are not reproductively viable past the first or second generations. 
Automobiles and off-road vehicles kill a significant number of migrating California tiger salamanders, and contaminated runoff from roads, highways and agriculture may adversely affect them.
REFERENCES FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION 
ECOS (Environmental Conservation Online System) Species Profile
Anderson, J.D., D.D. Hassinger and G.H. Dalrymple. 1971. Natural Mortality of Eggs and Larvae of Ambystoma t. tigrinum. Ecology 52(6):1108-1112.
Anderson, P.R. 1968. The reproductive and developmental history of the California Tiger Salamander. Masters thesis, Dept. Of Biology, Fresno State College, Fresno, California.
Barry, S.J., and HOB. Shaffer. 1994. The status of the California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) at Lagunita: a 50 year update. Journal of Herpetology 28:246-255.
Cook, D.G., P.C. Trenham and P.T. Northern. 2006.  Demography and breeding phenology of the California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) in an urban landscape. Northwestern Naturalist, 87:215-224.
Feaver, Paul E. 1971. Breeding pool selection and larval mortality of three California amphibians: Ambystoma tigrinum californiense Gray, Hyla regilla Baird and Girard and Scaphiopus hammondi hammondi Girard. Master's thesis, Dept. Of Biology, Fresno State College, Fresno, California.
Fisher, R., and H. Bradley Shaffer. 1996. The decline of amphibians in California’s Great Central Valley. Conservation Biology, 10:1387-1397.
Holland, R.F. and S. Jain. 1977. Vernal pools. Pages 515-533. In: M.E. Barbour and J. Major, eds. Supplement to terrestrial vegetation of California (new expanded edition). California Native Plant Society Special Publication 9.
Holland, D.C., M.P. Hayes and E. McMillan. 1990. Late summer movement and mass mortality in the California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense). The Southwestern Naturalist 35(2):217-220.
Hurt, R. 2000. The elusive California tiger salamander. Tidelines. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Newark, California.
Morey, S.R., and D.A. Guinn. 1992. Activity patterns, food habits, and changing abundance in a community of vernal pool amphibians. In: D.F. Williams, S. Byrne, and T.A. Rado (editors), Endangered and sensitive species of the San Joaquin Valley, California: Their biology, management, and conservation. The California Energy Commission, Sacramento, California, and the Western Section of the Wildlife Society. 149-158.
Photo Credit: Cathy Johnson, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office
2800 Cottage Way, Room W-2605
Sacramento, California 95825
Phone (916) 414-6600
FAX (916) 414-6713
Last updated July 29, 2009