Stanford Hopes To `Slime Cal' With New Mascot

STANFORD, Calif. - Introducing the latest candidate for Stanford mascot: the California tiger salamander.

A group of Stanford University biology students think they have found the perfect candidate to escort into the Stanford Stadium and onto T-shirts and mugs.

So what if the salamander, a candidate for endangered species status, is responsible for this year's cancellation of the Lake Lagunita bonfire before the Big Game against California.

The school's traditional bonfire was called off because of the risk of cooking the rare creatures, which live under the dry lake bed where the event has been conducted.

With its shiny black skin and cream-colored spots, it's cuter than the current mascot, the tree, salamander proponents reason. It's meatier than "the Cardinal" - how many people get jazzed about a color, anyway?

It inspires such slogans as "Slime Cal" and perhaps a new rivalry with the University of California-Santa Cruz's mascot, the banana slug.

"We could take on the banana slug in a slimefest, with the salamander chasing around the banana slug," said biology graduate student Jamie Reaser, one of the salamander faithful at Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology.

Of the 50 salamander communities in the state, Lake Lagunita's is one of the largest. Anointing the salamander would be "building some pride in something that's specific to Stanford's campus," Reaser said. And, she added, "it can only help the salamander."

The salamander already was entered into a university logo design contest this summer only to be shot down by the judges. (So were the sea lion, the cardinal - as in the bird - and about 50 other ideas.)

But the salamander lobby is undaunted.

To make sure there are real-life models for the sweatshirt designers, folks from the conservation center and the Coyote Creek Riparian Station in Alviso, Calif., have organized a salamander escort service.

When the rains start, the amphibians leave their squatter pads - gopher and squirrel burrows in the foothills - and bop down to Lagunita to breed.

But they're not very adept at negotiating Junipero Serra Boulevard.

Last year, the known salamander road kill numbered 125, or more than one-fourth of the Lagunita population, Reaser said.

So this year, on the dark and stormy nights on which the salamanders prefer to travel, 10 students will be their crossing guards. They'll set up fences to block the wayward salamanders from the road, scoop them into buckets and carry them to safety.

The eight-inch wigglers already have proved to be a force beyond their numbers.

In addition to forcing the scrapping of the Big Game bonfire, they've also led Stanford to abandon some dorm-construction plans.