Tea and Salamanders

Nestled in the misty, snow-capped Himalayas in northeast India, the city of Darjeeling — the famed “Queen of the Hills” — has long been synonymous with its legendary tea gardens.

But tea isn’t the only thing you’ll find on these rolling mountains. A “living fossil” also inhabits this landscape: the endemic Himalayan salamander (Tylototriton himalayanus), whose ancestors roamed the Earth with dinosaurs about 160 million years ago.

At first glance these ancient amphibian survivors, all of 6-7 inches (16–18 cm) in length, look like lizards with elongated bodies and long tails. Their broad, blunt-snouted heads, raised ridges across their bodies, and heavily textured brownish-black skin give them the armored appearance of miniature crocodiles.

Locally called the pani kukur — meaning “water dog” in Nepali — the salamander neither barks nor bites.

“In fact, the creature is so harmless that when you pick it up, it gently slips into your palm without a fuss,” says 80-year-old Nar Bahadur Rai from Basti Gaon in Darjeeling’s historic Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate. What fascinates the smiling village elder most of all, though, is that a species with a “Jurassic legacy” exists near his village.

Dwindling Numbers

The octogenarian recalls that as a child, he would find salamanders in abundance across the hilly wetlands or slowly waddling on moist soil, particularly during monsoons.

The nearly 160-year-old Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate in Darjeeling is home to one of the largest breeding habitats of the Himalayan Salamander. Photo: Prasant Kumar Allay, used with permission.

But today they’re far less common. According to the IUCN, which has assessed the species as vulnerable to extinction, many of the salamanders’ wetland habitats have been drained for agriculture or irrigation, or encroached upon by roads and other infrastructure. The introduction of exotic fish into some of these wetlands and unregulated tourism add to the pressure.

An estimated 5,000 individuals may survive in the wild, based on the latest survey conducted across Darjeeling hills in 2025. The species is also distributed in parts of Bhutan and Nepal in the eastern Himalayas, but hasn’t received as much study in those areas yet.

Protecting this species will require protecting more of its habitat — efforts that experts say may depend on recognizing the salamanders as the flagship species of these biodiverse wetland ecosystems.

A Valuable Burrower

Also called the crocodile newt or Himalayan newt, these amphibians inhabit cool, shaded wetlands and forest ponds along the Himalayan slopes, where they breed from late April through the monsoon. Their straight, muscular tails help them swim, while the knob-like granular glands lining their backs deter predators by releasing a milky toxin. In the nonbreeding season, they hibernate on land, burrowing into the damp forest floor beneath leaf litter, rocks, and tea bushes until the first monsoon showers return.

The “lizard-looking” amphibian hibernates beneath leaf litter, rocks, and tea bushes after breeding, before returning to wetlands to mate with the first rains. Photo: Barkha Subba, used with permission.

“These tiny creatures are exceptional bio indicators; their very presence in a wetland is enough to indicate that the ecosystem around is alive,” explains Devesh Pandey, divisional forest officer, Kurseong (an important salamander area). On land, their burrowing through damp earth, leaf litter, and mud makes the soil porous, allowing rainwater to seep through and recharge groundwater, improving water availability in these hilly areas, he says.

Community Stewardship

Although the species remains little studied, Barkha Subba, scientist at Federation of Societies for Environmental Protection, has been spearheading their protection and habitat restoration for the past few years. Her work brings together government agencies, including the forest divisions in Darjeeling and the West Bengal tourism department, nonprofits such as the World Wildlife Fund-India, tea estates, and local communities.

The efforts earned international attention earlier this year as one of the 2026 winners of the prestigious Whitley Award. Often referred to as the “Green Oscars,” the awards honor grassroots conservation programs across the global south and come with £50,000 ($67,000) in project funding.

Standing knee-deep in a wetland, Whitley Award winner Barkha Subba is delighted to gently hold a Himalayan Salamander between her palms. Photo: Deoashis Thapa, used with permission.

The award will enhance Subba’s multipronged approach toward community awareness and stewardship, which will include salamander protection committees across villages to identify and document new salamander sightings while improving degraded habitats.

And since Darjeeling is a global tourist destination that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors from India and abroad, she’s also training local youths to educate tourists on keeping salamander habitats free of plastic and garbage.

Habitat Restoration

Unlike many declining species, Himalayan salamanders are neither hunted for food nor sought for traditional medicine. According to Subba, the biggest challenge in conserving the species lies not in protecting the amphibian itself, but its habitat. The animals requires pristine, unpolluted waters to thrive, as they tend to return year after year to breed in the same wetlands where they were born.

“But with most of its traditional habitats getting disturbed, fragmented, or disappearing, its viable population is also gradually vanishing,” she says.

Of the 37 to 40 documented salamander breeding sites studied across Darjeeling hills, Subba notes that nearly 80% lie outside protected areas, within tea estates, village commons, and private lands.

“Conserving the species thus cannot solely rely on protected areas,” she says. “Rather its future depends on trust, cooperation, and long-term commitment of the communities who live around these habitats.”

Salamander’s Hope

One of Darjeeling’s largest salamander ponds lies within the historic Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate, established in 1864. Flanked by gently sloping terraced tea gardens and pine trees, this 39,000 square foot (3,654 square meters) swampy wetland holds water throughout the year, fed by local streams and rain.

“The pond, which was once a large lake and is almost as old as the tea garden itself, has been retained in its natural state, with its natural vegetation intact, and is thus a traditional habitat of Himalayan salamanders,” says Prasant Kumar Allay, manager of the tea estate.

The water of the pond is revered by local communities. However, some people have released exotic fish such as carp and guppies into it — an act believed to wash away one’s sins.

“This has made salamander eggs and larvae vulnerable, as they are eaten by the fish,” says Ramesh Rai, the estate supervisor, who stirred up community awareness of this enigmatic species through an article in a local magazine way back in 2005.

Helping Hands

Today Rai has become an adept at “parenting” the salamander eggs, and he leads his team in their protection.

During the peak breeding season between May and July, when females lay gelatinous clusters of eggs on submerged vegetation in the pond, the salamander team from the tea estate carefully collects them before water levels plunge after the rain,s exposing the eggs to direct sunlight.

“This would otherwise dry up the protective jelly around the eggs and they would die,” says Rai.

Close-up of gelatinous Himalayan Salamander eggs attached to native vegetation in the breeding wetlands. Photo: Barkha Subba, used with permission.

The eggs are then transferred to a temporary pond of 55 square feet (about 5 square meters), with an island of vegetation in the middle. The water levels are maintained to keep the gelatinous coating submerged, where it absorbs water and enlarges, keeping the eggs safe until they hatch, explains Rai. After about 12-14 days of careful monitoring, the hatchlings emerge. Rai and his team initially feed them mosquito larvae cultivated by the estate, and later small earthworms as they grow.

A miniature lake dug to protect salamander eggs relocated from the main breeding site at Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate, with a small, vegetated island at the centre to anchor the eggs. Photo: Prasant Kumar Allay, used with permission.

Tea Partnerships

Meanwhile, the species is also found in the tea gardens of Tung and Mirik, besides Nakhapani in Gopaldhara Tea Estate.

“We plan to work as a team with the managers for the protection of salamanders and other biodiversity in the tea gardens,” says Subba. She explains that these efforts will also add value to the gardens’ annual reporting for the global Rainforest Alliance Certification, which verifies compliance with environmental and sustainability standards required for tea exports.

Across these tea gardens, protected areas, private land holdings, and community-managed forests, she and her team are restoring critical salamander breeding sites with different stakeholders.

“We have identified the ones that need immediate attention, having dried up, become silted, or been taken over by invasive plants as reeds or exotic fish,” says Subba.

She emphasizes that the key to increasing the number of salamanders in the wild is bringing back their habitats along with the native vegetation. Invasive species like phragmites and other kinds of reeds are uprooted and replaced with salamander-friendly plants such as sweet flag, knotweed, and watercress. Females attach their delicate jelly-coated egg clutches to the broad, semi-submerged leaves of watercress or the stems of knotweed. These native plants anchor the eggs in the stagnant water above the floor of the pond and protect them from predators until they hatch.

Forest Initiative

Meanwhile the Kurseong Forest Division is also working toward declaring the potential salamander habitats of Namthing Pokhari (a biodiversity heritage site), Panchpokhri, and Pokhritar wetlands as India’s dedicated salamander sanctuaries. According to Devesh Pandey, divisional forest officer, these wetlands have been assessed in collaboration with the Zoological Survey of India for pH balance, toxicity, dissolved oxygen levels, surrounding vegetation, and other habitat parameters.

A few artificial wetlands have also been created, with native species to enhance habitat suitability.

Pandey confirms that while the conservation of the Himalayan salamander is being carried out under Subba’s guidance. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has also sanctioned funds for the proposed sanctuary, with Subba as the project’s principal advisor.

Undisturbed Habitats

Some naturally occurring salamander habitats across the hills have acquired cultural and religious significance over generations. Surrounded by vibrant prayer flags and fed by the pure waters of hilly springs, these wetlands are worshipped by local communities as the abode of deities. Subba hopes reviving this heritage will also help protect these habitats.

“This tends to keep such places undisturbed, clean and peaceful where salamander thrives best,” she says. Three such sacred wetlands — Namthing Pokhari, Tiffin Dara in Pokhriabong, and another within the Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate — are also among the sites selected for restoration with the funding from the Whitley Award.

“The joy of seeing these gentle, slow-moving salamanders is when we leave their habitat completely undisturbed and let them do their own thing; after all they have held onto this Earth for centuries,” says 73-year-old Rajendra Prasad Gurung from Mirik, in southwest of Darjeeling. Gurung owns about 3.5 acres of land that appear unkempt, with verdant native foliage such as sweet flags fringing 4-5 marshlands that have been traditional breeding sites for decades.

In winter when they come to land for hibernation, three or four salamanders even come close to his home, “slipping underneath some of the flowerpots,” says Gurung.

From its undisturbed habitat on Rajendra Prasad Gurung’s land, the rare Himalayan Salamander ventures near his house. Photo: Rajendra Prasad Gurung, used with permission.

That said, there are still challenges. With climate change shifting patterns of rainfall and intensity, sudden deluges sometimes can wash away the eggs. Invasive reeds are taking over parts of his land, which need to be removed for native species to thrive.

Getting Tourists to Help

Spillover of plastic pollution from nearby tourist areas also clogs the marshlands.

Making tourists aware of responsible behavior around the fragile habitats of the species is one of the objectives of the Salamander Initiatives of Sukhia, a local collective formed in 2023, about 75 kilometers from Mirik in western Darjeeling.

Members of the Salamander Initiative Sukhia remove plastic and other waste from a tourist site to keep Himalayan Salamander habitats clean. Photo courtesy: Salamander Initiative Sukhia.

“Many of the salamander’s natural habitats are also places of tourist interest in Darjeeling,” says Furba Tshering Sherpa, who has been working on salamander conservation for 15 years and leads the initiative there.

Located about 6,500 feet above sea level, Sukhia Pokhri is surrounded by the majestic Himalayas, draped in tall pine forests interspersed with lakes and wetlands. One such destination, Majhidhura, which holds 7-8 natural habitats of Himalayan salamander, draws flocks of tourists.

“They tend to spend hours here, making videos or taking photographs amid this scenic landscape,” says Sherpa.

In the process, they often end up littering the area with plastic bottles and food wrappers or brushing away the salt that estate managers use to protect plants from the leeches that abound in the region. Sherpa and his fellow members are often seen explaining the species to tourists through life-cycle charts, videos, and still photographs. They point out how such indiscriminate behavior disturbs the ecosystem and makes the water salty, which may eventually destroy the salamander habitats.

The recently formed Majhidhura Salamander Protection Committee, which works with the Forest Department’s Joint Forest Management Committee, is a step ahead in engaging village heads, local vendors, and taxi drivers catering to the tourists, community members, nonprofits to protect the species and its habitats in the region. The vendors and drivers are being trained to act as tourist guides and regulate the entry of visitors, especially during the three months of breeding season.

Meanwhile the first Himalayan Salamander Festival was held on May 30. The event brought together government agencies, researchers, scientists, conservation organizations, local communities and other stakeholders from across the region to learn of the latest state of conservation and exchange ideas for the future. Organized by FOSEP, the festival aimed to draw up a practical and inclusive conservation action plan, ensuring no one is left out of the deliberations.

“We all thus become the guardians of our salamanders and ensure they continue their ancient legacy,” says Sherpa.

This year’s “Green Oscar” winner, Barkha Subba, could not have been happier.

“The transformation from ‘your’ salamander to ‘our’ salamander today has made my work with the local communities all the more fulfilling and meaningful,” she says with a smile.