Conservation Fisheries, Inc.

Newsletter #9 December 5, 2001

Barrens Topminnow Recovery

Local landowners have agreed to introductions of the BTM on their property, and have permitted access for monitoring

To date, a total of about 300 fish have been released at six sites. All were tagged with Visible Implant Elastomer tags. We have used these tags with other small, non-game fishes successfully in the past (see previous newsletters on tagging boulder darters). Tagging was done so that individuals from separate introduction sites would have different marks, allowing the identification of any fishes found that may have migrated out of the immediate introduction sites.

CFI and the Tennessee Aquarium currently maintain four breeding populations of topminnows. Two of these no longer exist in the wild! These will provide material for reintroduction work as the recovery project expands to include other areas within the historic range of the BTM. Genetic studies are underway to help determine the amount of variability between these four populations. We hope that information gathered in the genetics studies will help guide us in choosing potential stock for reintroductions into Duck River headwater tributaries, where BTMs have not been seen since the 1960s. Recent extensive surveys have not given much hope that Duck River populations still exist.

We should know more about the status of these introductions by next summer and will provide updates when new information is available.

Barrens topminnows (BTMs) are known only from a relatively small area of south-central Tennessee known as the Barrens Plateau or simply "The Barrens". As recently as the early 1980s as many as 14 sites were known to contain this beautiful killifish. By the mid-1990s, the number of sites containing BTMs had been reduced to only two! The BTMâs closest relative, the whiteline topminnow, F. albolineatus, was known from a single spring in the middle of Huntsville, AL. It has not been seen since the late 1800s and is presumably extinct!

The downfall of the BTM appears to be attributable to a combination of poor land use practices, depletion of the water table, and competition with the exotic (at least to this area) western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis.

This ambitious project is an attempt to recover the BTM, and includes many cooperators. In addition to CFI, the Tennessee Aquarium has propagated fish to release. Several Federal Fish Hatcheries (Dale Hollow, Wolf Creek, and Chattahoochee) have also helped grow fish propagated at CFI. The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the Tennessee Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Conservation Service have been instrumental in obtaining funds and coordinating this project. Students at Tennessee Tech are also helping by monitoring the introductions, and exploring the competitive interaction between BTMs and mosquitofish. However, some of the most important participants are the local landowners that have agreed to allow these introductions to take place on their property. All but one of the new BTM sites are located on private lands. One is located on a USFWS Wildlife Refuge. Some of these private landowners agreed to modifications of their land that would better accommodate topminnows. Some have allowed installation of exclusion fencing, and alternate water sources for cattle, and stream stabilization structures. All have generously allowed access to these sites for regular monitoring.


Powell River in VA	Powell River Yellowfin Madtom
Other News Fall surveys of the Powell River have been exciting! Unfortunately, no slender chubs (one object of these surveys) have turned up as of yet. However, yellowfin madtoms appear to be doing better than expected. We have collected this rare madtom at three sites in Tennessee. Until this year, they were only known to persist at one site, and there in low numbers. In addition to our finds, a multi-agency group surveying for mussels in the Powell recently found a couple of yellowfins at a site in Virginia! We had surveyed the same site earlier, but had concentrated our efforts on slender chubs. We had noted excellent yellowfin habitat at that site and just upstream and had plans to take a closer look next year. Because the Powell River was very low and clear this fall, and because we ventured out from some of the bridge crossings via canoe, we have been able to find some great spots to return to next summer for more intensive surveys. We were very encouraged to see relatively clean substrate, even in some of the deeper pools, which means there should be plenty of ideal yellowfin spawning habitat available. We also conducted some surveys in and around the Buffalo River in western Tennessee. We were able to locate spotfin chubs from about the Natchez Trace Parkway, down to the previously known Grinders Creek site. These will provide stock for the future reintroduction projects planned for Shoal Creek in Alabama. While in the area, we collected slackwater darters, Etheostoma boschungi, from two Tennessee localities. At these two sites, the fishes were relatively abundant. These will be conditioned for hatchery spawning later this winter. We'll report on these results in future newsletters.
Slackwater Darter, Etheostoma boschungi

Happy Holidays to all!

J. R. Shute

December 5, 2001