Good news for the Tellico River! In August the Fish and Wildlife Service published the final ruling on the Nonessential Experimental Population Status for the reintroduction of four federally protected fishes into the Tellico River. This will allow CFI to begin the reintroduction of: spotfin chubs, Erimonax monachus; Smoky madtoms, Noturus baileyi; yellowfin madtoms, N. flavipinnis; and duskytail darters, Etheostoma percnurum into sections of the Tellico River this Fall. This project has been a long time in the works and we are excited that the ruling was finally published. We expect to start with spotfin chubs in October, and begin stocking duskytail darters and both madtoms in the spring.

Smoky madtom, Noturus baileyi

 duskytail darter, Etheostoma percnurum

This project will be very similar to the project we currently have underway in Abrams Creek, where we have been stocking these same four species for more than a decade now.

This seems an appropriate time for an Abrams Creek update as well! We are seeing great numbers of several of the reintroduced fish this year. Duskytail darters are becoming relatively abundant in several stretches of the stream. We are seeing numerous young-of-the-year fish that were spawned in the creek this spring. This species is dispersing to areas of good habitat throughout the reaches of stream that have been stocked.  

We are also very encouraged by the numbers of yellowfin madtoms we are seeing. We have seen more wild spawned, young-of-the-year yellowfins this year than in all previous years combined!

Up until last week, we had not seen any smoky madtoms in Abrams Creek this year. That changed when we made a hike into one of the more remote stocking sites we have used. There, we found more smoky madtoms in one night than we had seen in 15 years of searching. Not only that, all of these were wild spawned fish, most were young-of-the-year! These were seen over three riffles, where the somewhat patchy habitat was available. That same night, we saw a record number of yellowfin madtoms and several young duskytail darters. These three species appear to be well on their way to becoming re-established in Abrams Creek. This is a great example of how reintroduction projects such as this one, are not going to be overnight successes. It’s taken us nearly 15 years to reach this point! Needless to say, we were thrilled! 

We are still not seeing any spotfin chubs, however. We have stocked relatively small numbers of these fish into Abrams over the past few years, they have a much greater dispersal capability, and are probably are much more prone to predation. Hopefully, we will be able to increase the numbers we are able to stock over the next couple of years and this, along with a little more time, will enable us to begin to see results in Abrams Creek similar to what we’re seeing with the other three species.

Barrens topminnow update 

We have also been busy with the Barrens topminnow restoration project. Propagated fish were stocked at several localities this month. These stockings coincide with habitat restoration projects currently underway throughout the topminnow’s range. Students at Tennessee Tech are conducting much of the monitoring of the reintroduced populations, and will soon be examining the interactions of topminnows with western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis. For years now, we have observed extirpations of topminnow sub-populations as mosquitofish moved in. Mosquitofish have appeared on the Barrens Plateau perhaps as recently as the 1970’s and as habitat is disturbed, these aggressive fish quickly move in apparently replacing the topminnows. Studies such as the ones currently underway will, hopefully, help guide us in our efforts to recover this extremely imperiled fish!

Propagated topminnows

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