As a young boy growing up on a Sunol ranch, Tim Koopmann liked to watch California tiger salamanders slither through the mud into a livestock pond to breed. The amphibians with yellow stripes were cool stuff to take to show-and-tell at school, but he didn't see they had another practical value. Decades later, the salamanders saved his family's ranch, with the guidance of a conservation group formed by ranchers to protect ranching and, at the same time, wildlife.
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