A lot of people had never heard of the Ozark hellbender until news came in November that after 10 years of efforts to captive-breed them, 63 of these aquatic salamanders were born at the Saint Louis Zoo.

This is the first time for this subspecies to be born in captivity. They will be released in a few years into the Ozark river system.

Rivers in south-central Missouri and Arkansas once had about to 8,000 hellbenders. The numbers have dwindled to 600 in the wild because of pollution, disease and poaching. The amphibian was added in October 2011 to the federal endangered species list.

The Ozark Hellbender Working Group, along with other public agencies, universities and zoos, started the project in 2001 to stop the decline. In 2004, facilities were built to breed the amphibian. The Saint Louis Zoo's Ron Goellner Center for Hellbender Conservation and the Missouri Department of Conservation recently made the announcement of the newborn baby hellbenders.

Jeff Ettling is the Zoo's curator of herpetology and aquatics. He has been one of the leaders in this project. He believes the new hellbender babies are welcome news, not just for scientists, but for all people.

Question: Did you feel like a father when you heard the news?

Answer: It's been a pretty surreal event. For our keepers who take care of them on a day-to-day basis, it's been very exciting.

Q: What is the source of your own passion for reptiles and amphibians?

A: I grew up in the St. Louis area. I was that one kid on the block with the snake. I'm lucky. When I was in sixth grade, I knew I wanted to be a herpetologist. I always had snakes at Show and Tell. Right now, I'm living the life.

Q: You've traveled around the world on similar projects. What are some of the countries?

A: I've gone to Jamaica and Puerto Rico. I've recently been to Armenia, where I've help authorities with the Armenian viper, which is a venomous snake. They also are affected by the changing environment. A lot of countries face the same problems.

Q: What attracted you to helping the hellbenders?

A: Part of it is they're right in our backyard.

Q: What were the difficulties in breeding them?

A: It's been a learning process. The hellbenders need adequate space to hide and nest. We've also had to tweak the environmental conditions. Since 2007, we were able to get the females to lay eggs, but couldn't get the males to participate. We thought they might have deformed sperm. Then, we changed the water quality. In St. Louis, water is different than in the Ozarks.

Q: Why should people care about the hellbender?

A: The hellbender absorbs oxygen from the water through its skin. This is an indicator of the river's quality. People might think a river looks pristine, but they can't see the changes. We're losing a number of water animals, including turtles and fish.

Q: Does the hellbender fulfill some special niche in nature?

A: They're part of the food chain. About 90 percent of their diet is crayfish. As adults, they don't have a lot of natural predators, However, fish eat them when they're babies.

Q: The plan is to release them back into the Ozark aquatic system. How will they do?

A: The hellbenders will be over 6 years old when we release them. They'll be big enough to have a fighting chance. We hope to release enough where they can breed naturally. We'll put a special computer chip under their skins. When we catch them, we can scan and keep track of their movements.

Q: Finally, you've worked with lizards, turtles and venomous snakes. Ever been bitten?

A: No. I'm very careful.