Ten years ago today Bsal was found in Germany. It is a disease that basically gnaws into the skin of newts (kind of like flesh eating bacteria) and once infected the salamander cannot survive on it’s own. Over these past ten years thousands of salamanders have died and they are still dying. But these ten years also taught us ways to help the firesalamanders and other newts against Bsal!
Most important steps:
1) stay on the official path when walking in the woods and make sure that dogs or other pets stay on the paths as well
2) disinfect your shoes (or bike-tires, dog-pads etc.) after a walk to avoid spreading Bsal to another area
3) if you find a firesalamander DO NOT TOUCH THEM but instead take a picture and send it together with the coordinates to the responsible authorities of your city (in Germany it would be NABU or alike…)
4) inform others so they can help too :)