Adding our storm drain markers—each with a unique type of aquatic wildlife depending on your watershed—to your block can start a conversation with neighbors about how communities can protect local waterways.
Many people don’t realize that what goes down storm drains can harm local animals like otters, turtles, herons, endangered fish and more.
The truth is, cleaner neighborhoods and cleaner streets mean cleaner Philly rivers and creeks!
Find out what watershed you live in here sign up for a free wildlife marker kit
Below: Check out our PhillyH2O Instagram series exploring the wildlife on each watershed’s marker + find a local group you can team up with in your watershed :
Wissahickon Watershed: Red Salamander Friends of the Wisshickon
We had so much fun sharing yesterday’s bog turtle storm drain marker for the Poquessing Watershed, we’re going to share each of Philly’s watershed markers + a fun fact about the featured critter over the next six days. Today: the Wissahickon Watershed’s marker, which features the brilliant northern red salamander, known as Pseudotriton ruber. The temperate forests found along the #WissahickonCreek/@wissahickonwatershed provide ideal habitat for this amphibian, which can be as long as 7 inches. They like to eat bugs, worms, spiders, snails, small crustaceans and even smaller salamanders. Female red salamanders don’t mature until they are around five years old. Fun fact: As a member of the Plethodontidae family these bright red salamanders lack lungs and breathe through their skin! While abundant in #Pennsylvania and found throughout much of the Eastern U.S., they are considered endangered in Indiana. Think you might live in the Wissahickon Watershed? Use our profile link to find out + sign up for free storm drain marking kits so your neighbors know they can help protect the red salamander by keeping our streets and storm drains free of litter and harmful chemicals. You can also help protect their habitat by volunteering with groups like the @fowissahickon In this gallery: A great photo of #PseudotritonRuber from @kyleshikes + a map of the Wissahickon (black lines are #Philly limits) Watershed’s boundaries from our watershed locator, available in the profile link. – – – – #reptilesandamphibians #paherps #whyilovephilly #CleanWatersPHL #PaWildlife #phillyh2o #urbanwildlife
A post shared by Philadelphia Water Dept. (@phillyh2o) on May 24, 2017 at 11:43am PDT
Tookany/Tacony-Frankford: Great Blue Heron TTF Watershed Partnership
Next in our series exploring our watershed storm drain markers: the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford’s Great Blue Heron. Swipe through this gallery to see a photo of a #TaconyCreek #blueheron pic from @ttfwatershed’s Robin Irizarry & a map of the watershed. (Use profile link to see if you live in the the watershed/get a free kit with this marker) N. America’s largest + most widespread heron, they stand tall on thin, lanky legs & have a stunning wingspan of up to 6.6 feet—way taller than the average person in America! Their striking appearance makes them seem much heavier than they actually are; they typically only weigh 5 to 6 pounds. Blue Herons are excellent hunters. If you hike quietly on the #TaconyCreekTrail, there’s a chance you’ll get to watch one of these birds as they stalk prey in the water, standing motionless for long periods until their next snack reveals itself. Places like #TaconyCreekPark provide an excellent place to hunt their favorite meal: fish. Healthy creeks also contain smaller creatures heron love to munch on, including salamanders, frogs, snakes & small rodents. The #AudubonSociety even reports birds seen stalking gophers in fields! Fun fact: If you visit the @audubonsociety profile on blue heron at Audubon.org, you can hear some of the wild noises they make, such as the croaks given upon landing, alarm croaks, their calls, the clattering of their nestlings and other sounds from blue heron colonies. We don’t know what dinosaurs sounded like, but we sure can imagine them sounding like these guys! Live in the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed? Use our profile link to sign up for free storm drain marking kits so your neighbors know they can help protect the Great Blue Heron by keeping our streets and storm drains free of litter and harmful chemicals. @ttfwatershed also offers lots of volunteer and #birding activities. H/T to #phillyartist @louis_a_cook for designing this series with PWD! #igers_philly #phillygram #pabirding #BirdPhilly #NEPhilly #tacony #taconycreek #FrankfordCreek #cleanWatersPHL #watershedstewardsPHL #Phillywatersheds #pawildlife #urbanwildlife #phillynature #circuittrails #whyilovephilly #onthecircuit
A post shared by Philadelphia Water Dept. (@phillyh2o) on May 25, 2017 at 1:19pm PDT
We hope you had a good Memorial Day, #Philly! We’re continuing our #PhillyWatersheds storm drain marker wildlife series by diving into the #Pennypack Watershed. Featured on these markers is an insect that was flying around before dinosaurs even existed—the damselfly. Swipe through the gallery to see a Seepage Dancer damselfly from Pa.’s @northbranchlandtrust, a map of the #PennypackWatershed and the often-unseen damselfly nymph. Use profile link to get your free marker kits. These brightly colored creatures inhabit small bodies of water and feast on aquatic insects that live close to the surface. While they are predators, their smaller size compared to their relatives, the dragonfly, also makes them prey. With four wings that can beat 20-45 times per minute, damselflies can make quick, sudden getaways. While most people only see them as flying adults, they spend the first part of their lives under water as nymphs, sometimes living and hunting in the water for years. This fact makes them a favorite food for fish like trout, and storm drain marker artist @louis_a_cook cook selected them to represent Philadelphia’s aquatic insects because the Pennypack Creek is a favorite local trout stream where fly fishermen often imitate both nymph-stage and adult damselflies. Fun Fact: #Damselflies have massive eyes that give them nearly 360-degree vision. Because their young are sensitive to water pollution, the presence of damselflies is often the sign of a healthy ecosystem and great water quality. Thanks to improved watershed protection and organizations like @fopennypackpark, @pennypackfarm, Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust and other groups that help keep the watershed clean, #PennypackCreek is an ideal place for damselflies to reside. Live in the Pennypack Watershed? Use our profile link to sign up for free storm drain marking kits so your neighbors know they can help protect the #damselfly by keeping our streets and storm drains free of litter and harmful chemicals. _ _ #igers_philly #phillygram #cleanWatersPHL #pawildlife #urbanwildlife #phillynature #circuittrails #whyilovephilly #entomology #bioindicators #patrout #pennypack #pennypacktrust #pennypackpark
A post shared by Philadelphia Water Dept. (@phillyh2o) on May 30, 2017 at 3:18pm PDT
Schuylkill River Watershed: N. American River Otter Schuylkill Action Network
Today we look at our final #PhillyWatersheds storm drain wildlife marker: #CobbsCreek’s shortnose sturgeon. Use our profile link to get free kits & mark your street! These endangered fish are often called “living fossils” for a reason: they’re among the oldest of a prehistoric type of bony fish that—resembling swimming dinosaurs—feature armored, boney plates called “scutes.” Swipe through to see an adult fish from the @ noaafisheries site + video of adult shortnose shared by the Delaware River Basin Commission. While they can be over 4 ft. long, they’re the smallest sturgeon species. Philadelphia is an important area for this fish, as they migrate to spawning areas above the city and return to our urban Delaware River habitat afterward in the spring. What they eat: According @wildlifenj to these unusual fish feel along the bottom with sensory “barbell” organs and vacuum up crustaceans, bugs, freshwater clams and mussels, snails, marine worms, crustaceans, small flounder, and a variety of other organisms. Fun Fact: Males can live to be 32 … but the ladies? They can be as old as 67! In just one spawning event, females produce anywhere from 40,000 to 200,000 eggs. Like several others species in featured in our marker series, a combination of overharvesting (their eggs were highly prized as caviar) and poor water quality wiped out shortnose sturgeon. Today, there are an estimated 12,000 of these #EndangeredSpeciesAct-protected fish in the #DelawareEstuary. PWD aquatic biologist Joe Perillo says that they’re a “big river fish” and not likely to be found in the #DarbyCobbsCreek. So why feature them on our Cobbs marker? Because keeping our tributaries healthy is a key part of keeping the larger Delaware River Watershed healthy! Use our profile link now to see if you live in the #CobbsWatershed and get FREE shortnose sturgeon kits to start a conversation with your @cobbscreekneighbor (s) on your block about protecting water! _ #CleanWatersPHL #igers_philly #whyilovephilly #phillygram #paWildlife #urbanwildlife #phillycares #zerowastephilly #PickItUpPhilly #shortnosesturgeon #watershedstewardsphl #sturgeon #cobbs #wildlifenj #wildlnj #PAWildlife #cleanwater #darbycreek
A post shared by Philadelphia Water Dept. (@phillyh2o) on Jun 2, 2017 at 8:09am PDT
