St. Martin’s students help with ‘newt commute’ at Lacey ponds

A group of biology students at St. Martin’s University in Lacey found a way to bring the lessons of the classroom out to the field — and help some small amphibians along the way.

The City of Lacey and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife had set up fences around a set of ponds near the St. Martin’s campus, to keep an invasive species, the African clawed frog, from spreading.

But Megan Friesen, an assistant professor of biology at St. Martin’s, said the fences had an unintended consequence for a native species of newts.

“The newts go into freshwater — they migrate there annually to reproduce,” she said.

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