The event hosted by Cornplanter Council of Trout Unlimited at the Brokenstraw Fish and Game Club included fly-tying demonstrations with Cornplanter Council members and Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited Northwest Region Vice-President Ari Capotis, and fly-casting demonstrations by TU, information about the Allegheny National Forest’s centennial celebration, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and Conewango Creek Watershed Association, and more.

The Seneca Nation Conservation Department brought two juvenile hellbenders to the show.

Visitors could hold the salamanders — the Pennsylvania State amphibian and the largest salamander in North America.

Seneca Nation Fish and Wildlife Director Will Miller said the two hellbenders are about 10 years old.

Pennsylvania Council of Trout Unlimited Northwest Region Vice-President Ari Capotis ties a fly at the Cornplanter Council Trout Unlimited Spring Conservation and Fishing Show Saturday at Brokenstraw Fish and Game Club.

“We raised this one from an egg,” Miller said. “We worked with the Buffalo Zoo. We took some eggs and they took some eggs.”

Initially, those eggs were part of a “head start” program to provide the individual animals a chance to grow in safety before being released, he said. The program has since changed to a focus on outreach and education — like participating in the TU Spring event.

Miller said hellbenders are known to live to about 50 years in the wild and 70 in captivity.

The hellbenders at the show were about 16 to 18 inches long. The largest formally-documented specimen was 29 inches and individuals of over 30 inches have been reported, Miller said.

It is a species of special concern in New York and Miller said the department does not keep any hellbenders from the wild. “The upper Allegheny does have the largest population in New York State,” Miller said.

Rod Henry of Cornplanter Council Trout Unlimited ties a fly at the council’s Spring Conservation and Fishing Show Saturday at Brokenstraw Fish and Game Club.

Times Observer photos by Brian Ferry Seneca Nation Fish and Wildlife Director Will Miller (right) helps Alexis McDonald pick up an eastern hellbender brought to the Cornplanter Council Trout Unlimited Spring Conservation and Fishing Show by the Seneca Nation Conservation Department.